A country sick with crime

THE EDITOR: The recently stated intention of the Prime Minister to declare crime a public health emergency is a great political strategy. After all, the country is sick with crime. Then, too, it is the public health emergency of covid19 that largely motivated him to call an unexpected August election in 2020 and win, just before the sun could rise.

There was every likelihood that he would have lost that election without the covid19 get-out-of-jail card. The crime epidemic now provides another golden opportunity to keep the winning narrative of public health alive. It makes political sense, since daily murders are already outstripping covid19 deaths.

Is the rebranding of crime a brazen attempt to portray it as a foreign or naturally inflicted plague and so remove political culpability from the master Rasta in the Cabinet? In 2020 many made “the right choice” because of apparent early government success in locking down covid19. To them, they were voting to live, for their very lives.

The party in power had access to the treasury and covid19 relief funds to allay the fear and insecurity of the population. If similar spending under the banner of crime can be replicated, especially along the east-west corridor, then the possibility of another red dawn in 2025 will be enhanced.

The forced crime and health synergy appears to be a naked attempt to engage in political spending in the face of the gathering storms of poverty, nakedness and misery throughout Trinidad and Tobago. I hope the details when revealed prove me wrong.

What exactly does the designation of crime as a public health emergency mean? Is it that mask wearing for criminals will be made mandatory? The latter seems to already be the case. Gunmen will not be caught dead without their masks.

This new move by the Government to play on the population’s fear of crime and equate it to health is brilliant. Look at the many people who continue to stifle themselves, even when they are driving alone or taking a stroll in pristine open spaces. They seem programmed and dazed after two years of waiting for edicts on what would happen from midnight.

Clearly, citizens need to assess their own risks, apply common sense and guard against donkey logic infecting their psyche. Unless we believe that all criminals are mentally ill, crime and health are not inextricably linked.

We don’t need to label crime differently to reduce or prevent it. To start with, what is needed is a minister of national security and a commissioner of police who have the confidence of the nation. We have neither.

While former CoP Gary Griffith instilled much confidence, he has now fired one shot into the political gayelle and killed his resurrection. Someone with similar fortitude and ability must be appointed.

The current Minister of National Security, on the other hand, is also woefully unsuited to the post. Time after time his public utterances have been too politically partisan and designed to insult a very large segment of our population. We ought not to have such an individual leading a critical ministry where a unified approach is mandatory.

There is no need for further costly analysis-paralysis concerning youth crime. There are volumes of research sleeping in vaults within ministries. Go back unashamedly and review the many years of free advice from the late Dr Morgan Job. Find the work of the 1989 Cabinet-appointed committee on national service headed by J O’Neil Lewis.

Implement a genuine national service programme to clear the heads of our youth and instil national pride and patriotism. Strengthen and expand the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), MiLAT (Military-Led Academic Training Programme) and other programmes. Reopen the GATE (Government Assistance for Tuition Expenses). Such initiatives have nothing to do with health.

ANDREW CROSS

Tacarigua