An outreach and awareness program by Tonga Police with communities continues in Tongatapu in its fight against the spread of illicit drugs.

Police go out meeting with communities, schools and youth groups.

A new Police Community Safety vehicle was also rolled out during the community awareness program at Lapaha last week, one of four new vehicles funded by Government to assist Police in the fight against illicit drugs. 

Deputy Police Commissioner Pelenatita Vaisuai said they continue to strengthen their partnership with the community, through an education and awareness campaign.

“As a community, we need to work together to ensure the safety of everyone. One way to improve this community partnership is allowing communities to take ownership of existing security issues and working together to come up with viable solutions.”

She said Police continued to invest a lot of effort into working with the community to prevent crime.

“We have been working hard to improve our response to reports of crime and combined with our prevention focus, we are seeing a reduction in crime, which in turn, making our communities safer.”

However, in order to continue this trend she said Tonga needed to continue its focus on victims, prevention activities and efforts to reduce alcohol and drug related crime. “Information from the public is vital for us to prevent crime,” said the Deputy Commissioner.

“We all have a role to play in reducing crime, If we all do our bit to watch out for our neighbours and for each other and report suspicious activity, we can make a big difference and significantly reduce the number of victims of crime in our community while holding offenders to account.” 

There are currently 101 community posts in Tonga.