JOEL JULIEN
The level of violence in this country is "just too high and unacceptable," Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has said.Rowley said this country is labelling itself as a "violent society" in which a person can lose their life "for the slightest thing."And this is not something that the Government can "flick a switch" and turn off, Rowley said.
"At the end of the day the level of violence in Trinidad is just too high and unacceptable. And what is the Government's role in this?
"In many instances the Government's role does not begin until after the crime has been committed so we have to ensure that we do nothing to encourage the growth in this kind of behaviour," Rowley said.
"To take your point that in so far as economic stress may contribute to personal behaviour that we work towards lowering that stress by improving the economic circumstances. But even as economic growth attended us we did have unacceptably high levels of crime so one does not exclude the other.
"It is just a question that it is a problem of violent conduct. Our society is labelling itself as a violent society and one could lose one's life for the slightest thing and that is not a matter that the Government can come and say, 'Okay I'm going to flick a switch and turn it off'," he said.
Rowley said the Government will intervene where it can to make the society more law-abiding.
"Where we can do things we will do. For example I understand that the speed guns...I understand it's having an effect but there are things that we can do and at the end of the day the national security agencies and the Government at large have a responsibility to bring about a feeling of safety in the national community and to secure the national community and those things we will keep on doing on a sustained basis," he said.
For the year so far, there has been 178 reported murders. There was a total of 410 murders for 2015.
