GILLIAN LUCKY

When it comes to fight­ing crime there is noth­ing to cel­e­brate be­cause the fig­ures con­tin­ue to show mere­ly mar­gin­al in­creas­es in the de­tec­tion rates for some vi­o­lent crimes and no­tice­able de­clines in the de­tec­tion of oth­er se­ri­ous of­fences. In some in­stances, the de­tec­tion rate is, be­lieve it or not, ze­ro.

This un­sat­is­fac­to­ry per­for­mance has been the sto­ry for quite some time and lit­tle will be gained by point­ing our fin­gers in the right di­rec­tion at those re­spon­si­ble for the cur­rent po­si­tion. As usu­al, we have not ben­e­fit­ted from mak­ing the stitch in time to save nine and so we are forced to "catch-up" in a race in which we are shame­ful­ly lag­ging be­hind. The crim­i­nal el­e­ment has not eased its sav­age at­tacks and the evil minds of those who per­pe­trate these atro­cious acts are some­times be­yond hu­man com­pre­hen­sion. That our so­ci­ety has pro­duced such ruth­less mon­sters who are al­lowed to roam freely and re­main large­ly un­de­tect­ed is an in­dict­ment against all who have wast­ed and abused the op­por­tu­ni­ty to im­ple­ment mean­ing­ful change.

Rest be as­sured

For­mer Min­is­ters of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and their re­spec­tive lead­ers and ad­vis­ers who as­sured the cit­i­zen­ry that it should re­main calm in the face of es­ca­lat­ing crime be­cause the mat­ter was be­ing giv­en "top pri­or­i­ty" at­ten­tion, should hang their col­lec­tive heads in shame be­cause their state­ments have amount­ed to noth­ing more than po­lit­i­cal rhetoric. Much more could have been done if on­ly pol­i­tics was put aside and the in­ter­est of the coun­try was giv­en para­mount im­por­tance. In­stead, peo­ple in charge pre­ferred to lead the pub­lic in­to a false sense of se­cu­ri­ty that things would get bet­ter and, in fact, things have got­ten worse. Gangs are more preva­lent than be­fore and pass­ing dra­con­ian leg­is­la­tion is hav­ing lim­it­ed im­pact in re­duc­ing crime. The crim­i­nals do not fear the sys­tem and are con­fi­dent that they will not be caught. At the end of the day, there is no de­ter­rent for their ne­far­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties.

Death by as­phyx­i­a­tion

If the pub­lic was hold­ing its breath each time politi­cians guar­an­teed that we would win the crime war, we would all be dead from de­pri­va­tion of oxy­gen. This regime has been giv­en the man­date by the over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty of the peo­ple to en­sure that each cit­i­zen en­joys the fun­da­men­tal hu­man right to life, lib­er­ty, se­cu­ri­ty of the per­son and the en­joy­ment of prop­er­ty and the right not to be de­prived there­of ex­cept by due process of law. Any gov­ern­ment that fails to do all with­in its pow­er to en­sure the pro­vi­sion of this con­sti­tu­tion­al guar­an­tee is guilty of will­ful ne­glect and al­though in this sce­nario such ac­tion is not a crim­i­nal of­fence that does not make it right. On the elec­tion trail last year, this regime pre­sent­ed a com­pre­hen­sive man­i­festo which in­clud­ed ref­er­ence to crime re­duc­tion and hu­man se­cu­ri­ty. The con­tent in this sec­tion of the man­i­festo is im­pres­sive and if fol­lowed the ob­jec­tive of re­duc­ing crime will be achieved. But mere words and good in­ten­tions are in­suf­fi­cient; fit and pro-per in­di­vid­u­als must be cho­sen to dri­ve the process at all lev­els to en­sure suc­cess­ful im­ple­men­ta­tion and pos­i­tive re­sults.

No im­prove­ment

Over­all, the sta­tis­tics re­flect the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion and one could well un­der­stand the con­cern ex­pressed by those who are call­ing for dras­tic mea­sures to be tak­en with im­me­di­ate ef­fect. The pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (Do­ma), Gre­go­ry Aboud, has called for less talk and more ac­tion in the are­na of crime fight­ing, es­pe­cial­ly in Port-of-Spain, and his ob­ser­va­tion that the prob­lem is ap­par­ent­ly wors­en­ing with each pass­ing month must not be light­ly dis­missed. On the con­trary, the fig­ures are speak­ing for them­selves and the ut­ter­ances by those who en­cour­age the pop­u­la­tion to ap­pre­ci­ate the minis­cule "wins" in a war that re­lent­less­ly wages on, are de­lib­er­ate­ly or in­ad­ver­tent­ly in­sult­ing the in­tel­li­gence of the law-abid­ing, dis­cern­ing pub­lic. The fig­ures rep­re­sent­ing the to­tal se­ri­ous crimes re­port­ed and de­tect­ed at each of the nine di­vi­sions of the Po­lice Ser­vice for June are less than im­pres­sive with the East­ern Di­vi­sion hav­ing the high­est over­all de­tec­tion rate of bare­ly over 30 per cent and the North­east­ern Di­vi­sion with less than five per cent. One can on­ly hope that there are reg­u­lar di­vi­sion­al heads meet­ings chaired by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and high on the agen­da is a crit­i­cal analy­sis of the sta­tis­tics and, more im­por­tant­ly, strate­gies dis­cussed for in­creas­ing the alarm­ing­ly low de­tec­tion rates across the board.

War wages on

The harsh re­al­i­ty is that de­spite ef­forts by many peo­ple giv­en the charge to re­duce crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, there has been lit­tle sig­nif­i­cant suc­cess and so morale with­in the ser­vice is at an all-time low and the pub­lic con­tin­ues to lose faith, hope and con­fi­dence in those man­dat­ed to pro­tect and serve with pride. The re­cent state­ments of the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty sug­gest that Sen­a­tor Sandy is aware of the crime scourge and so is des­per­ate­ly call­ing on all law-abid­ing stake­hold­ers to as­sist him in a fight which clear­ly we are not win­ning. But the call for help with­out a se­ri­ous com­mit­ment to im­ple­ment com­pre­hen­sive plans that will be suc­cess­ful in the fight will on­ly re­sult in the con­tin­ued fail­ure to bring the cri­sis to man­age­able pro­por­tions.

Min­is­ter Sandy should re­al­ly call for all the re­ports sub­mit­ted by com­mit­tees and com­mis­sions over the last 10 years as such doc­u­ments con­tain rec­om­men­da­tions that, if im­ple­ment­ed, will send a clear and un­am­bigu­ous mes­sage that this Gov­ern­ment is go­ing to re­claim our na­tion from the hands of heart­less ban­dits. The es­tab­lish­ment of a Na­tion­al Crime and Jus­tice Agency, sim­i­lar to that es­tab­lished in the Unit­ed King­dom many years ago when that coun­try faced its crime cri­sis, should be at the top of the list of this regime's crime plan. This Gov­ern­ment may have its own ideas but we can­not af­ford to play pol­i­tics with a mat­ter that is of ur­gent, pub­lic im­por­tance. As to the amount of as­sis­tance that Min­is­ter Sandy will re­ceive from his ju­nior min­is­ter, Col­in Par­tap, time will tell, but un­for­tu­nate­ly, in the fight against crime, we are al­ready out of time.