St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN); Nevis Premier Vance Amory has made a bold statement in the face of a recent rash of homicides in the federation- he says in 2017, the Nevis public will not see the levels of crime experienced in the recent past.

“I want to give the assurance that we will not return to the levels of criminal activity that we had in 2016, 2015 and any time before; not this year.”

On the heels of one of the most brazen homicides in Nevis in recent times, where a young man was gunned down on a cricket field in the middle of a Sunday afternoon match, Premier Amory says he was shocked at the incident, since he thought that with the investment in national security both at the island and federal level, police would have had better control of the crime situation.

“I was hoping, well more than hoping, expecting, that with the kind of efforts and resources which the federal government and Nevis Island Government have put into crime fighting, the police force, the equipment we’ve given, transportation, and the kind of training to which the police have been exposed and the kind of direction they have been given to engage in seeking to get into the communities, talk to the young men and women, talk to the people who may be known to have committed crime or who may be suspected or alleged criminals to bring them under control. It is a painful thing.”

The Premier said all Nevisians need to safeguard the island’s image of a safe and peaceful place, as much is riding on that positive view of Nevis being an ideal place to live and do business.

“Nevis is a peaceful place, a place people love to come to. When I speak to people who are visitors- and just last week we had engagement with persons who had come in for official business and they say we love Nevis. Nevis is a place that the atmosphere, the environment is one which is so welcoming, and we need to use that. We have to continue as a people to fight it, to confront it and we have to continue to pray, because somewhere it seems as if the forces of evil have infiltrated the minds of some of our people and it has to be a total community effort, total national effort.”

“If we are not to keep that peace and security and safety, we could lose so much.”