Police have doubled the number of arrests they've made this year compared to 2008 and are locking up prolific offenders "at a prodigious rate" according to newly-promoted Assistant Commissioner Paul Wright.

He's spearheading a strategy to keep close tabs on the small number of criminals less than 700 of them who are responsible for almost half of all crime.

They've been dubbed "prolific priority offenders" and officers have been encouraged to use all powers they have at their disposal to keep them in line.

These include stop and search measures to ensure they're not carrying weapons.

Mr. Wright explained: "Based on analysis for the last four years in Bermuda, you have ten individuals who've been arrested 30 times or more.

"There are 210 who have ten arrests or more and 1500 have three arrests or more. So if we're going to focus our efforts, we want to focus on where we can have the biggest effect."

Since July 4 Mr. Wright a 24-year veteran of the Bermuda Police Service has served as Assistant Commissioner with responsibility for serious and organised crime and intelligence.

He takes over the job from Bryan Bell, who came to Bermuda on a three-year secondment from the UK.

Upon being promoted to Superintendent in 2007, he commanded the Intelligence Division where he worked to modernise intelligence-led policing. He is keen to continue to promote the use of that approach to target crime.

In an interview setting out his priorities, he told The Royal Gazette that analysts within the Intelligence Division are reviewing key areas such as fatal road traffic collisions and gang incidents to figure out where and when they are happening and who is most involved in them.

Following that, decisions are made on where best to direct patrols to have the most effect.

Persons deemed to present the biggest risk to the community have been designated as "prolific priority offenders" (PPOs) as part of this, and officers have been briefed on who they are.

"In Bermuda, a small minority of criminals commit a large number of crimes. In the last four years, 646 criminals were arrested or suspects in 43 percent of all of our crime. What's even more concerning is that just 100 of them are responsible for 15 percent of all crime in the Country. We're concerned with the people at the top of this pyramid," said Mr. Wright.

He explained that when officers encounter one of these designated offenders, they are encouraged to use all legal means at their disposal such as "stop and search" powers to ensure they're not carrying weapons.

"We'll be similarly interested in submitting intelligence reports on who they're associating with, where they work, what they're wearing, what cars they're driving so that we build a picture of who those people are that we should be focusing on," he told The Royal Gazette.

"There are lots of law abiding youngsters who live in sections of the community that are troubled by gangs.

"That doesn't mean to say that everybody's an active gang member.

"Within the context of the trouble that we're having with gang violence right now, we have identified 49 prolific priority offenders who we know are involved in that kind of activity."

According to Mr. Wright, these 49 people were arrested last year a total of 41 times, and had 269 "contacts" with the Police such as where they've been arrested, issued with a traffic ticket or stopped and searched.

Overall, said Mr. Wright, "We've doubled the number of contacts we've had with PPOs since last year. Some of those have resulted in their arrest, and we're doing that because that's what the public has told us they expect."

The benefits, he said, are multiple: "It allows us to build better criminal conspiracy cases.

"It also allows our officers to raise their awareness of who they are so if they see them in an area that they're not normally associated with, we can pre-empt any violent confrontation."

It means that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of arrests. "We're locking them up at a prodigious rate, in the first six months of this year we've made a total of 1979 arrests. Last year we were at just over 3,000 arrests for the whole year, so we've really upped our game."

Last month, public safety minister David Burch called for a "Cleansweep-style" crackdown on street drug pushers, rounding them up in the hope of putting the squeeze on those higher up.

Operation Cleansweep was first launched under Police Commissioner Colin Coxall in the late 90s.

Responding to this, Mr. Wright replied: "I think that our performance data speaks for itself, the number of arrests that we're making, the number of contacts that we're doing, the number of criminal trials we're putting together shows that we have dramatically repositioned ourselves to focus on that area.

"So I support what Minister Burch is saying about disrupting the rhythm of what's going on in the streets."

He added that identifying priority offenders is part of a three-pronged "holistic" approach focusing on prevention and deterrence, catching and convicting criminals and later rehabilitating them.

Data on priority offenders is therefore shared with other Government departments so staff can intervene with young people identified as being at risk of descending into criminality, and also to rehabilitate them after punishment.

In addition, the Police are working with overseas agencies to disrupt and intercept contraband and criminal networks before they affect Bermuda.

Mr. Wright is promoting more consistent training of investigators through the ranks and the Police are working with the National Training Board to put together a training and development manual for all officers.