PIMPS, touts and prostitutes will have a hard time ‘scoring’ when the International Cricket Council (ICC) Cricket World Cup gets under way on March 11, as the police say security will be tight during the event.

According to Assistant Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington, who is chairman of the local security for the Cricket World Cup and local delegate to the International Cricket Council Security Directorate, no one will escape police scrutiny.

“We will be targeting persons with dangerous intent. We will target pimps, touts, prostitutes and we will search everybody,” Ellington said.

This warning comes less than two weeks before the opening ceremony gets under way at the Greenfield Stadium in Trelawny.

Ellington, who was speaking recently at a tourism and recreational security workshop in Kingston, also told the gathering that the police would be keeping a close watch on the Sabina Park venue in Kingston.

“Sabina Park is located within an area known to have a high incidence of crime. Large numbers of persons will be passing through those areas and can be exposed,” the ACP remarked.

Thousands of foreign nationals are expected in the island for the event, and the police say they have been trained to deal with the threat of terrorism.

The two stadia that will host matches and the opening ceremony, as well as other areas where large crowds will gather, will be given special attention, Ellington said.

“There will be bomb sweeps before and after matches, and we will search the venues before each match. We will be manning the entrances to eliminate any threat,” Ellington said.

Several hundred cops have participated in specialised training courses ahead of the tournament, but Ellington insisted that national security was still a priority for the security forces.

“We cannot attempt to secure the tournament in isolation. We have to look at national security. We will be keeping up our hot-spot policing mentality,” he said.

On Monday, work crews were busy putting up rails and painting the sidewalk on South Camp Road, near Sabina Park.

Residents of North Avenue and Campbell Street in Allman Town were also trying to finish the construction of concrete walls. Under the Lift Up Jamaica programme, the government is funding the construction of walls along the designated travel route from the National Heroes Park.

North Street, sections of South Camp Road and other roads in communities around the ground have also been fixed, but the lower section of South Camp Road, below East Queen Street, was not repaired. This road surface was in stark contrast to the newly repaired section near Sabina Park. The side streets of Rosemount Avenue, Goodwyn Park Avenue and several leading into the community of ‘Browns Town’ were in a state of disrepair.

There were also mounds of marl and dirt on a spit of land near the Rae Town area, and a repugnant stench emanated from several of the gullies near to the cricket ground.