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BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, May 30, 2019 (Press Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister) – Citizens and residents of St. Kitts and Nevis should be satisfied that the country continues to enjoy a period of prolonged peace and security.

Prime Minister and Minister of National Security, Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris, said citizens and residents must commend all those who continue to play a critical role in the realization of this peace dividend.

“We have this calm in the society and persons should be commending all persons wherever they are from for this calm. This is the peace dividend we have been talking about and we are now having it and we are happy about it,” Prime Minister Harris said while responding to a question posed during his Wednesday, May 29, press conference.

The prime minister said that his Team Unity Government remains supportive of every effort by any individual or any entity “to preserve the peace and prosperity of St. Kitts and Nevis and to help others who would have gone astray or who are inclined to go astray to help them to get on the path of the narrow way of good, responsible behaviour, and that policy is now being tried elsewhere is now being recommended.”

Prime Minister Harris also used the occasion of his press conference to dispel rumours of payments being made to criminals in order to ensure peace, noting that those behind the peddling of such reports have “a hidden agenda” and that his government is not involved in any quid pro quo arrangement.  

“What this Government is committed to do, and we have said that, is to help those who have come out of prison [and] who are looking for a fresh start, we will help them to get a fresh start; we will invite the private sector to hire them; we will say to people in our communities ‘give them a chance to rehabilitate, give them a chance to earn their living because if you continue to punish them, having served the time, then you are restricting their options to be on the good and peaceful path,” Dr. Harris added.

In April 2019, Assistant Commissioner of Police with responsibility for the Crime Directorate, Mr. Andre Mitchell, revealed that that the country was witnessing significant reductions in major crimes, when compared to the same period last year. ACP Mitchell reported at the time a 42 percent decline in crime in St. Kitts and a 21 percent reduction in Nevis.