St.maarten – Information and information exchange is considered a key aspect in modern day law enforcement, the Law Enforcement Council writes in a recent report on the issue of information exchange between organizations in the judicial chain.
The Council indicates that there is much ground to be covered in this field. Organizations forming the judicial chain handle their own information cautiously while sharing of information is faced with a lack of mutual trust.
The lack of discipline to register information still seems structural, notes the report. Worrisome is the delay of government decision for investments in a software based information system that will facilitate both efficiency in investigations as for the operations of organizations as a whole.
Currently, searching and matching of data is still done manually while there are systems available that have highly automated this process. Sint Maarten is staying behind with modern development while organized crime is highly modernized.
The Council thus recommends to stimulate the cooperation within and outside of the judicial chain and to invest in adequate means, technical facilities and IT infrastructure.
The Council commends the work of the Info Unit and advises to maintain the process of improvements being made there. Furthermore, it is recommended to establish a working process to collect, register and process information, according to the Council’s report.
Furthermore the Council sees possibilities to make the process of interregional information exchange within the Kingdom more efficient. The need for requesting legal assistance does not always seem necessary. A lack of guidelines, policies, structure and knowledge leads to this aspect remaining vague and relatively unexplored.
Organized crime is highly modernized
