This is the eve of Christ­mas and it should be a time of re­flec­tion and grat­i­tude filled with love, laugh­ter, and joy. The fo­cus should be on all the good things that have hap­pened this year and the mem­o­ries that have been made.

To­mor­row’s cel­e­bra­tions, a key com­mem­o­ra­tion on the Chris­t­ian cal­en­dar, be­gan with the an­nounce­ment of good news — the birth of Je­sus Christ, the Sav­iour of the world.

How­ev­er, in T&T, the ex­cite­ment of the prepa­ra­tions and ac­tiv­i­ties lead­ing up to Christ­mas Day has been tinged with sad­ness and frus­tra­tion as the mur­der count has passed the dread­ed mile­stone of 600 and is head­ed to an­oth­er record high.

The 600th mur­der oc­curred ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing when 36-year-old Sta­cy Gopauls­ingh, a ju­di­cial sup­port of­fi­cer, was chopped to death dur­ing a home in­va­sion in St Mary's Vil­lage, Moru­ga.

Her bru­tal killing, in the pres­ence of her hus­band and chil­dren, fol­lowed yet an­oth­er bloody week­end in the coun­try, with three mur­ders record­ed be­tween Fri­day and Sun­day. The vic­tims in­clud­ed Kishon Hayghew, 23, a sol­dier who was shot dead along By­pass Road in Ari­ma on Sat­ur­day morn­ing; Je­re­mi­ah Rogers, 17, gunned down on Pic­ton Street, New­town, on Fri­day night; and Wen­dell Sim­mons, 42, fa­tal­ly shot out­side in Clax­ton Bay on Fri­day night.

At this rate, 2024 is on track to end like it start­ed, with blood­shed.

The first mur­der was record­ed when the year was just a few hours old and the vic­tim, 41-year-old Adun­di Tele­maque, was al­leged­ly tar­get­ed by his killers be­cause he re­fused to join a gang.

There was al­so a mur­der in To­ba­go — an ear­ly in­di­ca­tor of how the year has turned out on the sis­ter is­land with its high­est-ever mur­der rate.

Re­gret­tably, the peace and good­will that should be abun­dant at Christ­mas time is eclipsed by this year’s sharp spike in mur­ders.

A homi­cide rate of 26 per 100,000 peo­ple puts T&T high on the list of the world's most dan­ger­ous coun­tries. It is dri­ven main­ly by gang-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence, which ac­counts for 42.6 per cent of the mur­ders com­mit­ted this year.

The fail­ure of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to halt the out-of-con­trol vi­o­lence is proven by the da­ta from its Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis (CA­PA) branch. That rate has re­mained be­low 20 per cent and even plum­met­ed to an his­toric low of eight per cent in 2019.

The de­tec­tion rate was an abysmal 12.5 per cent in 2022, the year when the coun­try record­ed its high­est ever mur­der count of 605 and it im­proved on­ly slight­ly last year to 13 per cent.

T&T’s mur­der fig­ures have been steadi­ly climb­ing since 2014, a wor­ry­ing fact that is not ob­scured by po­lit­i­cal spin from the var­i­ous par­ties.

Promis­es from one side and con­dem­na­tion from the oth­er do noth­ing to ease the pain of the many vic­tims of crime, par­tic­u­lar­ly the mur­der­ous gang vi­o­lence.

As long as the gang­sters of Sixx, their bru­tal af­fil­i­ates and their many crim­i­nal ri­vals re­main at large, the joy of this sea­son re­mains un­der threat. The best gift pos­si­ble this sea­son is for the ta­bles to be turned on the crim­i­nals once and for all.

This Christ­mas, let there be peace and se­cu­ri­ty in T&T.