Removing profits from criminal activity is an area that could be further explored in cross-agency efforts to tackle gun violence, the Commissioner of Police said.

Darrin Simons noted that there was a general desire to develop work around asset forfeiture and financial crime investigations.

A Governor’s Council meeting was held this month for talks related to internal security and policing, with an emphasis on violent crime and particularly gun attacks.

Mr Simons explained: “Often people who are involved in these criminal activities, a parallel investigation that could take place is along the financial lines.

“When you start taking the profits out of crime, it begins to impact the criminals and their lifestyle.”

He added: “In terms of our ability to investigate serious crime, we are pretty good, in terms of our skills and capabilities.

“It is really in some of the new and emerging technologies and policing fields in the financial realm in particular that we could use further training, beyond what we are routinely doing.”

Government House said after the September 2 meeting that the council “shared the view that the status quo was insufficient and change was needed”.

Mr Simons said last week that the perspective was an acknowledgement that more can be done across the system, which includes the BPS.

“As a starting point, we need to increase staffing,” he added.

“Today we are at 379 officers, that’s below the agreed establishment of 420, so we will be accelerating our recruitment to get to that number.”

In 2023, the commissioner highlighted that applicants for BPS positions were screened out because they failed to meet health, physical fitness and psychological requirements.

At the time, after a recruitment drive resulted in more than 100 applications, only nine people made it through to training school.

Mr Simons said last week: “There are challenges around employment in Bermuda, period, irrespective of the industry.

“There are challenges in filling roles, certainly from within the local market.

“For us, sufficient people apply but not enough of them are sufficiently qualified to get through our processes

“You might argue that there are not enough people that we are looking for applying for those jobs within the local context, and that even includes expanding it to resident non-Bermudians.”

He added: “The options that we need to look at are going overseas to recruit officers and an option that the [national security] ministry is looking at for all uniformed services is to do some enhanced training to get local applicants up to the required standard.”

Government House said earlier that as well as “increasing the scale and pace of recruitment of BPS officers” other measures under consideration included the procurement of new equipment to enhance investigative and response capabilities.

The BPS noted last week: “Given the nature of policing there will be a continued requirement for more vehicles.”

Mr Simons added: “There are opportunities to use technology such as drones to assist law enforcement.

“Drones as a first responder are increasingly becoming the norm in other jurisdictions.”

Under its goal to “strengthen enforcement measures”, a National Violence Reduction Strategy Blueprint — laid by the Government last week in the House of Assembly — proposed investment in advanced surveillance systems “such as cameras, drones and facial recognition software to monitor gang activities while respecting privacy rights”.

David Burt told MPs then that another meeting of the Governor’s Council would take place today.

The Premier said on Friday: “We will receive updates from the uniformed services, and also ensure that all are engaged in the violence prevention and intervention programmes that are in place through the National Violence Reduction Strategy.”