By: Precious Mills

BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Friday, 29^th December, 2017)- To date, police reports about home break-ins and theft  continue, and so to this end, this media house has sought to gather information regarding home safety tips during the Christmas/Carnival and in general.

Most recently, a police press release issued on Wednesday 27^th December under the category of House Breaking and Larceny, revealed that police responded to several reports of such incidents which occurred in the areas of Cardin Avenue, Upper Thibou Avenue, Spooners Village, Taylors Housing Project and Mattingley Heights.

Yesterday (Thursday), this media house interviewed Superintendent of Prisons Junie ‘Scrape’ Hodge, a security consultant who is the Owner, Director and Chief Executive Officer of H & H Security Services.

As gathered, he has over ten (10) years of experience in security professionalism.

Services offered by his company include dog security, electronic security and close protection (Body guard).

In giving advice, he indicated: “Well what they can do is that with all valuables, make sure you have them secured and you don’t have them brandishing around. If someone was to peep through your window and they see your valuables that would encourage them to break-in but if they are not seeing anything of any real value that they can go with then they won’t be tempted to take that level of opportunity.”

“Make sure that you are leaving your home, let the neighbours know that you are not there in case your neighbours see anything suspicious on your premises, they can alert you and the police.”

Hodge added: “Get a dog or put up security cameras; that would help as well.”

He also said dogs are “good deterrents because once you have a dog loose in your yard then no one will want to venture because they are not sure if the dogs would bite them or play with them.”

He encouraged home owners to “real guard dogs, not like the Chihuahuas that make a lot of noise.”

For him, the best guard dogs are the bullmastiff and presa.

Talking about guarding quality of his bullmastiff, he said: “Once you come by me, my dog would not do you anything but if I turn off from you, the dog will keep you one spot; you won’t be able to move from there until I come back.”

In commenting on a cheaper dog option, he said “Well, if they want to chance it, there is what you call the ‘dump pan dog’ but the downside is that those kind of dogs eat from anybody so a perpetrator might walk with poison and feed it to the dog.”

In a follow-up about his Superintendent of Prisons employment status, he informed this reporter: “As I told you, I gave my lawyer the document but as it stands I’m still the superintendent.”

According to him, he is presently “on leave and on further leave until further notice.”