Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad is ex­press­ing scep­ti­cism in re­sponse to the gov­ern­ment's an­nounce­ment of a State of Emer­gency.

He not­ed that while some sec­tors of so­ci­ety may con­tend that the move is war­rant­ed giv­en the coun­try's crime rate and uptick in gun vi­o­lence, Dr Seep­er­sad said a tar­get­ed ap­proach must be tak­en by au­thor­i­ties and law en­force­ment aimed at ad­dress­ing root caus­es of crime rather than ap­ply­ing a tem­po­rary band-aid.

"I don't think it is nec­es­sary at all be­cause the key is­sue is that it is like a band-aid for a prob­lem, it nev­er gets to the root cause of what is re­al­ly caus­ing it and what the dri­vers are which is our mas­sive short­com­ings in the coun­try where we tend to re­ly on the sup­pres­sive and ap­proach where­as the re­al­ly deep­er ap­proach with is­sues that re­al­ly dri­ve these prob­lems in the first place are not ad­dressed."

Dr Seep­er­sad said the lan­guish­ing and wors­en­ing is­sue of gang ri­val­ries re­mains among the main fac­tors be­hind vi­o­lence that have gone un­touched by those in au­thor­i­ty.

"As long as we leave those is­sues in­tact, mean­ing the core is­sues, then they will keep com­ing at us and for some rea­son that I tru­ly can't fath­om as suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have done very lit­tle to fo­cus on what is re­al­ly caus­ing the prob­lem and to re­al­ly deal with that and un­til we do that the prob­lems will keep com­ing at us."