The Police administration say the new K-9 Unit will help in crime fighting
• Police announce the setup of K-9 Unit to fight crime
• Unit is made of specially trained dogs
• Security analyst believes the use of dogs in crime-fighting is best-policing practice
A security analyst, Adam Bonaa, has expressed delight in the introduction of outdoor operations by the K-9 Unit of the Ghana Police Service.
Speaking in an interview with GhanaWeb, in reaction to the announcement of the activation of a special dog’s unit by the Ghana Police Service, Mr Bonaa described the initiative as heartwarming.
“It is heartwarming to hear that the police has put together the K-9 Unit. Per best practices, K-9 Units usually form one of the best strategic units in policing and crime-fighting, if you know what dogs can be used for.
“I do believe that once the K-9 Unit has been outdoored it will add to what the current police administration is doing to fight crime and I would want to pat the current IGP and his team on the back and say we expect them to do more. It shouldn’t just be a unit by name but they should be a unit that ensures that crime rate comes down,” Adam Bonaa said.
While stating his long-standing advocacy in calling for the establishment of a K-9 unit in the Ghana Police, Adam Bonaa further lauded the Ministry of Interior and other stakeholders in the police administration for the initiative.
On how best the unit will contribute to crime-fighting, Adam Bonaa among other things said the unit if effectively deployed will help in the fight against illegal arms and illicit drugs.
“K-9ss are not just meant for chasing criminals down street corners and alleys. But you have some that are trained to sniff out drugs, you have some that are trained to sniff out firearms and you can have some that can sniff up to a certain number of things; corpses, firearms, drugs, explosives and all that
“Looking at our crime trends, largely I am expecting to see firearm sniffing canines to be deployed amongst the officers and, also I am expecting to see canines trained to sniff out drugs. Some of these criminals drive around town with drugs. Ordinarily, if you see them, you would not know but when the canine is trained to sniff it out it means that the person would not be able to sell it and the person would not be able to use it to become high and to commit a crime,” he said.
Adam Bonaa, however, urged that the handlers of the dogs will be equipped with the skills and training needed to effectively handle the canines to achieve the purpose of the unit.
“I would urge that the officers who handle them should be properly taken care of. Because a K-9 handler would have to be emotionally trained to ensure that you don’t just release the K-9 and urge it to do things that are not expected. The welfare of the canine handler is as important as the K-9s they are handling. Some of them will continue to use the dogs until they retire and so it is a whole process the officers go through to acquire the skills of handling the dogs,” Mr Bonaa said.
Announcing the activation of the K-9 Unit in a statement shared on their Facebook page, the police said “this component of policing is aimed at increasing the visibility of personnel, improving intelligence gathering, tracking of contraband goods and improving upon other aspects of criminal investigations.
“Plans are underway to extend this component of Police visibility to other regions.
“We shall continue to pursue multiple Security and Visibility Modules to increase our interactions with the public and aggressively fight crime in our communities,” the statement added.