GSD urges Govt to ensure RGP has all resources it needs

A lack of resources is “undoubtedly” having an impact on the Royal Gibraltar Police’s ability to tackle drug crime, the GSD said on Wednesday.

The GSD said the RGP’s Annual Report for 2023/4 led to that “inescapable conclusion”, adding it was the Gibraltar Government’s political responsibility to ensure adequate financial resources were allocated for policing.

The Annual Report records 161 drug offences in 2023/4, a 21% reduction compared to the preceding year.

“Though we would like to say this is due to a decrease in drug use this is not likely to be the true reflection of the local drug market and more as a result of a reduction in the resources available to tackle this issue,” the report said.

“This reduction in resources is due to the need to redeploy assets to meet other policing priorities.”

For the GSD, this suggests that the operational decision to disband the RGP Drug Squad last year arose because the force is faced with the difficulty of having to choose between areas of policing because it does not have enough resources.

“At the very least it highlights the impact that lack of resources is having on fighting crime,” the GSD said in a statement.

The police report itself acknowledged that the decision to redeploy Drug Squad officers to “competing operational priorities” in other areas had “a major impact” on policing drug misuse, even though the RGP continues to target drug suppliers using “a reactive intelligence-based approach”.

In Parliament this week, Justice Minister Nigel Feetham said tackling drug crime continued to be a priority for the RGP and other law enforcement agencies.

He said the Government was supporting the RGP to recruit 15 civilians for command and despatch and detention roles, which would free up 15 police officers for frontline policing.

He highlighted too an ongoing recruitment process for new police officers.

But the GSD said the concerns raised in the RGP annual report were “very concerning”, and Mr Feetham and the Government should not “hide behind the RGP” and claim there were “purely operational” decisions.

“This is disingenuous as these decisions are not being taken in a vacuum but are as a result of a lack of resources, the responsibility of which is a political one which lies squarely with the Government,” the GSD said.

Joelle Ladislaus, the Shadow Minister for Justice, said the role of the Minister for Justice was to ensure that the police had the resources needed to operate effectively.

“The GSD urges the Government to ensure that the RGP are adequately resourced to assist in tackling what is, after all, a blight on society as a whole,” she said.

“The promised recruitment of civilian posts to free up police officers may go some way towards this, but the Government should ensure that over and above this if the police need resources to fight crime, they get them.”