The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has lambaste the Guyana Police Force (GPF) for what it describes as a pattern of mismanagement and misinformation that is eroding public trust and fueling civil unrest, most recently in the case of 11-year-old Adrianna Younge, whose death has sparked outrage across Guyana, amid troubling inconsistencies in the police response.
In a strongly worded statement, the GHRA highlighted disturbing inconsistencies in the police’s handling of the case, particularly their early dissemination of an unverified claim that the missing child had been seen in distant CCTV footage — a narrative that conflicted with reports from the girl’s grandmother, who reviewed footage shortly after Adrianna’s disappearance.
Younge’s body was discovered around 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, April 24, with visible signs of violence, despite multiple searches of the area, including a pool where the body was eventually found. Her disappearance had been reported the previous afternoon.
The GHRA expressed concern over the growing trend of community outrage being met with dismissive or misleading responses from police, pointing to a broader pattern of mistrust stemming from other recent incidents, including fatal police shootings in Linden.
The group noted the unusual breadth of public sympathy for the burning of the hotel linked to Younge’s last known location — a reaction it characterised as “alarming” and reflective of widespread loss of faith in formal justice mechanisms. The GHRA warned that this shift signals a profound erosion of civic trust.
At the heart of the GHRA’s condemnation is what it describes as the politicisation of the police force. The statement points to the “unconstitutional” appointment of the current Police Commissioner, Clifton Hicken who had surpassed the official retirement age, as emblematic of the GPF’s drift from independence to political subservience. The Ministry of Home Affairs, the GHRA alleges, continues to exercise operational control over the force far beyond its constitutional oversight role.
“The Guyana Police Force is a civic, not a military body,” the GHRA said. “It is accountable to Government, not to the State …[but] successive Governments have treated the Police Force as if it were a Ministry of Government, through the Minister of Home Affairs involvement in day-to-day matters far beyond what ought to be an oversight role”
The group decried the state of the Police Service Commission as “moribund” and highlighted pervasive corruption and collapsing professional standards within the force. It also criticised President Irfaan Ali’s promise to allocate all necessary resources to the investigation as “weak and unconvincing.”
Instead, the GHRA called for the immediate re-establishment of constitutional norms, including the proper appointment of a Police Commissioner and the creation of a Civilian Oversight Board. It also urged the restoration of the institution’s former title, the Guyana Police Service, which has, without formal explanation, been discarded in recent years.
“Guyana urgently needs to operationalize accountability to multiple audiences — Parliament, Judiciary, media, and the public,” the statement said, noting that this model has been long embraced by democratic police forces elsewhere, but remains “remote from Guyanese law or practice.”
The GHRA warns that without serious institutional reform, Guyana may be headed toward deeper social unrest and instability.
