Over the week, there has been a pletho­ra of sug­ges­tions re­lat­ing to coun­ter­ing deep and en­trenched crim­i­nal be­hav­iours, in­clud­ing elim­i­nat­ing the gangs; pre­vent­ing the bloody-mind­ed from maim­ing their wives, even killing their chil­dren.

Some­one from Mars read­ing the lo­cal press and so­cial me­dia must sure­ly right­ly con­clude that an or­gy of crime is flour­ish­ing here, while Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion, busi­ness, so­cial in­sti­tu­tions and in­di­vid­u­als, who can chat plen­ty, seem in­stead to be com­plete­ly with­out the ca­pac­i­ty to counter flour­ish­ing crim­i­nal­i­ty.

There­fore, the out­siders can­not but think that the so­ci­ety has sub­mit­ted to the re­al­i­ty that maim­ing, bru­tal­is­ing and killing are the on­ly op­tions which ex­ist to avenge some wrong, per­ceived or re­al; and that en­gag­ing in crime is the on­ly means to ac­cu­mu­late wealth.

So if not a state of emer­gency, then what, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley? Every­thing that you and your lo­qua­cious Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Fitzger­ald Hinds, have done has failed. Please, we have had enough of you and your min­is­ters stand­ing on po­lit­i­cal plat­forms and prat­tling. Sur­prise the na­tion; do, and suc­ceed in your ef­forts in do­ing so.

The coun­try should al­so now take Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce T&T pres­i­dent Stu­art Fran­co, at his word: “We need to have con­cert­ed ac­tion and re­sults tar­get­ing the big fish—the peo­ple who pre­tend to be le­git­i­mate busi­ness peo­ple but are deeply en­trenched in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.”

On oc­ca­sion, there are com­ments from in­di­vid­u­als and in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing us in the me­dia, that ridicule Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher for seek­ing ex­tra-ter­res­tri­al as­sis­tance. But where are those very earth­ly an­ti-crime mea­sures and their im­ple­men­ta­tion strate­gies? Why have they not been put to work and suc­ceed­ed?

In the place of ac­tion, there is quite a sur­feit of pol­i­tics and emp­ty grand­stand­ing be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion, whose re­spons­es to crime amount to no more than vote-catch­ing “ma­m­aguy,” with the health and wel­fare of cit­i­zens as sec­ondary con­sid­er­a­tions, if in­deed they are even fac­tored in­to their think­ing.

The ex­pe­ri­ence has been that the re­spons­es of par­ties and their lead­ers to the des­per­ate calls of cit­i­zens for pro­tec­tion from crime, have been pure gallery of the elec­tion va­ri­ety.

The hard­core sup­port­ers of these two mono­liths must awak­en from their par­ty-in­duced po­lit­i­cal slum­ber to de­mand that their lead­ers do some­thing to stop this scourge or get out of the way. And those out­side of that par­ty mi­as­ma have to get them­selves in­to cit­i­zens’ ac­tion groups to be­come in­volved in pre­ven­tion and pun­ish­ment where pos­si­ble.

Here’s a pro­posed start: those busi­ness lead­ers, cor­po­rate in­di­vid­u­als and in­sti­tu­tions who know some­thing about crim­i­nal deal­ings, come for­ward and tell the po­lice; those who stub­born­ly pur­sue the view that hang­ing crim­i­nals im­me­di­ate­ly on con­vic­tion is not the so­lu­tion, tell us what to do out­side of pack­ing the al­ready over­crowd­ed pris­ons with con­vict­ed mur­der­ers.

Those who know where and how the street crim­i­nals are hid­ing their weapons and am­mu­ni­tion, re­lease that in­for­ma­tion to CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher for re­al world ac­tion.

Those who op­pose a state of emer­gency, and say why it can­not suc­ceed, have a du­ty to tell us why not, and in­form us of a vi­able al­ter­na­tive.

Most of all, we need to fo­cus at­ten­tion on Ecuador, over­run by crim­i­nals in the drug and gun trades, that’s our fu­ture, and in lights, if we do not act now.