Managing director of 21st Century Investigation and Security Service, Errol Vannooten, has endorsed the four anti-crime bills presented in Parliament last week, saying they are very "timely", the Government Information Agency (GINA) reported on Monday.
Vannooten and Minister of Legal Affairs, Doodnauth Singh were at the time being interviewed by GTV's general manager Martin Goolsarran on 'Close-up'.
The interviewees discussed the proposed amendments to the Crime Prevention Act, the Racial Hostility Act, the Evidence Amendment Act, and the Criminal Law (Offence) Act.
The minister, who is also a senior counsel, said that the term 'terrorism' used in the Criminal Law (Offence) Act was taken from existing legislation in the Caribbean, but it is "narrow and restrictive" as applied in the Caribbean, GINA reported.
However he feels it is a step in the right direction, but expressed dissatisfaction that the general public does not fully understand the bill and its meaning and loosely criticises the use of the term.
The bill, GINA said, refers to a terrorist as "whoever with intent to threaten the security or sovereignty of Guyana or to strike terror in the people by using bombs, dynamite or other explosive substances in such a manner as to cause harm or death..."
According to Singh, the premature response by the public to the term "terrorist" is largely due to its abnormality or relative newness to Guyana. To this end, the minister noted that anyone with intent to perform any such acts may be referred to as a terrorist.
Meanwhile, Vannooten supported the monitoring of deportees Act, pointing out that often, inadequate information on the deportees is available to the country of deportation.
He was quoted as saying that "we know that they are being sent back, and we know of the kind of sentence that is imposed upon them, but the modus operandi is not known to us, and any accomplice is not known to us."
The security service executive said that vital information could enable the police dealing with the deportees to definitively determine whether or not those persons are predisposed to committing crimes.
This information, Vannooten posited, would allow for close monitoring of the deportees over an appropriate period of time.
"It is important that we monitor people who are coming back into this country, with no place to go, no source of income...we must be able to monitor them over a period of time," GINA quoted Vannooten as saying. Singh noted that some convicts in the United States are electronically monitored.
Regarding the Racial Hostility Act, the minister said that the proposed amendment simply will increase penalties and provide admissibility of a broader range of evidence in a court of law.
The security specialist said it was unfortunate that Guyana had to resort to amending the Racial Hostility Act, adding that Guyanese needed to be educated about each other's culture and to grow to accept one another.
Such an approach, he contended, would lend support to this legislation. And the minister while lamenting that the entire Guyanese society had not condemned the escalating criminality, cited some talk show hosts for racial remarks as they "feel it is their duty to be racially hostile or preach hostility."