The Quezon City government will be setting up a system for high-tech profiling of crimes and crime suspects, including drug dependents who voluntarily surrender to barangay and police authorities.
Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte distributed computers with fingerprint scanners to the city’s 142 barangays and 12 police stations of Quezon City Police District (QCPD).
Vice Mayor Belmonte said the computer system will be used to profile the incidence, prevalence and characteristics of drug dependents in the city.
The data gathered by the system, the Vice Mayor said, can be used to determine consequences of drug use, extent of effort to treat and prevent drug abuse, and drug status of cases. It can also be utilized to monitor enforcement, compliance and scheduling/ inspection activities; forecasting; education; prevention and treatment; program intervention or strategies to deal with drug abuse; and establishing controls for drug.
Under the system, the barangays will be the data gathering unit of all the basic information, family background and drug abuse background of drug dependents. The Quezon City Anti-Drug Abuse Advisory Council (QCADAAC) will be the repository unit of all the data gathered by the barangays while the Quezon City Police District-District Anti-Illegal Drugs (QCPD-DAID) and the Police Stations will be the screening unit – tasked to verify if an individual has a pending warrant of arrest.
Earlier, Vice Mayor Belmonte announced that more than 300 barangay officials and employees in Quezon City were found positive in drug tests by the QCADAAC as of June 22, 2016.
Of the total, 172 barangay public safety officers or tanods turned out positive. Found positive were 2kagawads, 52 streetsweepers or ‘paleros,’ 7 barangay health workers, 15 drivers, 15 utility workers, 10 community brigade workers, 11 barangay staff, one member of the task force on youth development, 3 from the violence against women and children, 8 from the lupon ng tagapamaya and 7 fire volunteers.
“This is very alarming considering that BPSOs are the force multiplier of the police in ensuring peace and order in our communities,” said Vice Mayor Belmonte, who also sits as QCADAAC chair. # (ARES P. GUTIERREZ, Chief, PAISO)
