While promises have been repeatedly made over many years about “tackling crime,” citizens’ complaints keep growing.
The “tough talk” against criminals is not bearing fruit. Citizens keep hearing complaints from victims like Kent Moses who barely escaped death while doing business in San Fernando. He said “Nowhere safe, nowhere, nowhere. You don’t know how to live again.”
Elections come and go for the last 30 years, but have things changed?
If not properly tackled, crime gets worse from period to period. It’s not only about poverty, unemployment, parenting, etc. It’s also about ineffective policies and institutional deficiencies.
In 1980’s, crime and the fear of crime were rapidly increasing. My 2005 book, Crime, Justice and Society (The UWI) contains 56 chapters on this country’s crime from 1971 to 1991. One chapter recalled when Herbert Atwell was minister of national security and Jim Rodriguez was police commissioner in 1987. I wrote: “This cannot be a country living in fear. We certainly cannot continue with a prosecution rate of only 12 per cent when it comes to reports of house burglaries and larceny.”
I added: “Do you know that while 46,252 crimes were reported in 1970, convictions were obtained in only 1,679 cases for that same year? And while 43,723 crimes were reported in 1984, convictions were obtained for only 1,041 cases for that same year?” In fact, as an Independent Senator then, I repeatedly pointed out the serious implications.
I warned the government: "While a large part of our officialdom (NAR government) is now buried in (political) quarrels over equality and appointments to state boards, etc, this matter of crime and the security of our citizens cannot be ignored as it apparently has been.” This 1987 chapter was headlined "Crime and a Nation in Fear." Similar story but worse in 2023.
I briefly recall these things to help inspire a better way. What is distracting us? Haven’t we learnt anything from the past? In 1987, then national security minister, Selwyn Richardson, perceiving the crime situation as a “mess,” said “the police service is a disaster” – some ten years after Randolph Burroughs. The lesson? The organisation shouldn’t be a one-man show.
In his Express column last week, Roy Mitchell captured the scene with this headline “Our darkest hour.” He said: “It seems impossible to convince the leaders of TT that talking tough to criminal elements will get us nowhere. Those days are outdated. Today’s criminals are not afraid to die.” We are now in a “monstrous mess,” he stated.
A month ago, National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds, with good intentions no doubt, said: “We will fight like hell against crime.” Well, about 20 murders and home invasions occurred since. And then from the very top of the police service to criminals “We coming for you,” etc. Why doesn’t the government instead take urgent steps and make some fundamental policing improvements? Referring to inefficiencies in Municipal Corporations, the PM said “It is the system, mismanagement.” Well, what about the
