By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
POLICE officers have been urged to arrest and charge people for idly hanging around in public places in Port Moresby.
This was an attempt to clamp down on the increasing rate of serious crimes in the city.
There has been a 60% increase in armed robberies, stolen motor vehicles, rapes and break-and-enter in the first six months of this year compared to the same period last year.
Port Moresby metropolitan police commander Supt Fred Yakasa said that they had opted to arrest and charge people with loitering in public places rather than slap vagrancy charges on them.
The Constitution had already removed the Vagrancy Act that was enforced during the colonial days to control the movement of people into the urban areas.
Serious crimes were generally unheard of in those days.
Mr Yakasa stressed this when addressing 35 of his station commanders and officers-in-charge of various crime sections during an orientation meeting at Maggie seafood restaurant in Gordon.
Public safety assistance commissioner Jim Andrew also attended the event.
“People who are idly hanging around are the ones committing crime and causing inconveniences to the law abiding citizens. And we are not going to allow these opportunists to deprive others to move around freely.
“These opportunists also will be searched for drugs or weapons.
That is one way of enforcing law and order in the city,” he said.
Mr Yakasa also stressed to his officers to discipline their men in their sections if they were not behaving as required by their code of ethics.
He then handed down his seven policing strategy to combat crime in the city.