“As crime officers, you must strive hard to be good and effective leaders, who work together with subordinates to use knowledge, expertise, skills and networks to change society for the better,” he stressed.

Mr. Dery made the call at the second annual Crime Officers Workshop in Accra yesterday, aimed at resourcing the participants with the requisite knowledge in the discharge of their duties.

The programme, which brought together 180 crime officers across country, was on the theme: ‘Working to become a world class police organisation-The role of crime officers’.

The minister said as crime officers, who supervise investigations and analyse crime trends, it was important for them to upgrade and update their knowledge and skills.

Mr. Dery assured of government’s continuous efforts to resource the Ghana Police Service, to be able to overcome challenges of modern policing.

He said government has announced an extra budgetary allocation of GH¢800million as part of efforts to retool and equip the service.

“Government has further provided more than 200 pickup vehicles and motorcycles among other logistics to the Service,” he added.

The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr David Asante-Apeatu, said the role of the crime officer was crucial to the Ghana Police Service transformation agenda.

He said the collaboration between the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and Operations Department of the police was a collective responsibility to reduce crimes in the country.

“When the police experience a rise in the number of cases reported, number of arrests made and the number of cases before the law court, it is sign of poor crime prevention, our efforts should therefore be directed more on crime prevention so as to keep the statistics low,” the IGP said.

The Director-General of CID, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, urged the participants to move from reactive to proactive policing.

“There is the need for attitudinal change to accept intelligence led-policing in a proactive manner,” she noted.

DCOP Addo-Danquah commended crime officers for combating crimes in the country, and advised them to collaborate with stakeholders in the discharge of their mandate.

By Anita Nyarko-Yirenkyi