To achieve progress, a so­ci­ety or coun­try must ad­dress its short­com­ings re­al­is­ti­cal­ly and de­ter­mine the best way to over­come those short­com­ings or chal­lenges. Every coun­try, de­vel­oped or de­vel­op­ing, must ad­dress its ex­is­ten­tial chal­lenges be it a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter or man-made prob­lems like crime or the pro­lif­er­a­tion of a drug cul­ture. Of­ten these chal­lenges are in­ter­re­lat­ed and be­come self-re­in­forc­ing. In T&T, vi­o­lent crime and mur­der are hot-but­ton top­ics that are af­fect­ing every­one and every in­sti­tu­tion’s ca­pac­i­ty to re­spond in mean­ing­ful ways.

A school is meant to be an oa­sis of learn­ing and nur­tur­ing for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions. Ig­nor­ing the is­sue of cur­ricu­lum, the qual­i­ty of teach­ing, or what stu­dents bring with them in­to the school en­vi­ron­ment, the is­sue of the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of stu­dents is a mat­ter of grave con­cern. In the past few weeks, there has been at least one re­port­ed gun­fight out­side at least one pri­ma­ry school. Then came a re­port of gun­men in a school and last week of a wound­ed man run­ning through a school to es­cape as­sas­sins. There have al­so been re­ports of vi­o­lent con­duct in the schools, or chil­dren com­ing to schools with weapons.

Last week came the dis­turb­ing news that postal work­ers were be­ing ad­vised not to wear gar­ments with cer­tain num­bers lest they be iden­ti­fied as mem­bers of a ri­val gang and pro­voke re­tal­ia­to­ry at­tacks. There have been in­stances where util­i­ty com­pa­nies’ em­ploy­ees have been at­tacked. It is now rou­tine that they de­ploy se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel to pro­tect crews do­ing field­work. And last week shots were fired in a gov­ern­ment li­cens­ing of­fice.

The per­va­sive vi­o­lence in­di­cates that the coun­try is los­ing con­trol, a trou­bling sign of a con­tin­u­ing ex­is­ten­tial cri­sis.

The po­lice can­not be every­where to re­spond to every in­ci­dent or be in every school or every gov­ern­ment of­fice. The or­gan­i­sa­tion and dis­ci­pline of a school’s ecosys­tem are the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the teach­ers, the school ad­min­is­tra­tion, and the com­mu­ni­ties in which they op­er­ate. That means that our ap­proach to ad­dress­ing the cur­rent crime sit­u­a­tion must be re­con­sid­ered. So­ci­etal dis­ci­pline de­pends on what peo­ple are pre­pared to tol­er­ate, in de­vel­op­ing nor­ma­tive be­hav­iours that cit­i­zens are will­ing to live by and en­cour­age oth­ers to adopt.

In this con­text, a so­ci­ety is built on trust. Trust in in­sti­tu­tions and trust that those in­sti­tu­tions are do­ing the right thing and will do the right thing when chal­lenged. Where does this trust start? Where are the ex­am­ples to en­gen­der a sense of be­lief that the sys­tem will work if we abide by the rules? This be­lief is cre­at­ed and re­in­forced by the pos­i­tive ex­am­ples giv­en by pub­lic of­fi­cials who are in the spot­light.

When a Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er prais­es her per­for­mance in pub­lic where the ev­i­dence clear­ly shows that im­prove­ment is re­quired, it di­min­ish­es pub­lic con­fi­dence in the of­fice and in the per­son. When a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter avoids ac­count­abil­i­ty for what is his area or when he ridicules the Ju­di­cia­ry it un­der­mines pub­lic con­fi­dence in him and in the sys­tem. When the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al warns of con­tempt of court but speaks in Par­lia­ment on sub ju­dice mat­ters, it un­der­mines pub­lic con­fi­dence.

These pub­lic demon­stra­tions of im­po­tence dis­guised as self-praise with the in­tent to de­ceive on­ly serve to deep­en the sense of de­spair and hope­less­ness in the pop­u­la­tion. Pub­lic of­fi­cials must live up to the de­mands of of­fice and lead by ex­am­ple. The world changes by the pow­er of our ex­am­ple, not our opin­ion.