Government's impotence in dealing with crime

THE EDITOR: This week’s newspaper editorials provided a refreshing reminder of the power of facts.

In analysing the prime minister’s responses over the past nine years, it is apparent when pressed by spikes in crime especially murders, and amidst cries from a traumatised populace, this prime minister resorts to formulaic responses, empty assurances, and occasionally, bullying.

But we must dig deeper and fully analyse what he has actually done.

Two recent incidents show repetition of familiar themes of the prime minister’s stewardship: first, the remarkable statements he made recently about the SSA and ongoing Firearms Users Licenses (FUL) issues; second, the response to Inshan Ishmael’s community putting up a security booth, late last year.

On FULs, the PM presented a litany of offences by individuals hoarding weapons, purchasing enormous amounts of ammunition, and other malfeasance in the administration of firearms and ammunition.

All of this in the face of a clamp-down on the issuance of FULs to the population. However, many citizens asked: All this concern about citizens acquiring legal firearms, but almost none about criminals easily getting as many guns as they want?

It seems evident there is an effort to try to generate hysteria around the firearms issue, as an excuse to do what this government does best...nothing. Stop issuing licenses and clamp down on those who already have them. Meanwhile, criminals retain their firearms and even get new ones comfortable in knowing they will meet little or no resistance.

This isn’t the only way criminals are being encouraged. Who can forget the débâcle with Ishmael, who after violent attacks on his community in Bamboo Settlement No 2, last November mobilised residents to build a guard booth, only for the Tunapuna/Piarco Regional Corporation to promptly demolish it.

We all know how things work in this country – regional corporations are not known for their initiative or speed. Nothing could have been done without the knowledge and complicity of those in high office. Government’s fingerprints are all over this. The question is, "why?"

Surely government understands how its actions can be interpreted. This is not just a guard booth. It was a symbol of citizens fighting back. What does government do? Tie citizens’ hands, while signalling to criminals that the law, and the police's low detection rate, work for them.

This leads us to ask another question: What is really going on?

Does government care about fighting crime? Have they accepted this is something the population will just have to put up with and bear? Is having citizens living in perpetual terror part of their governance strategy?

Meanwhile, there is little notice that government’s stewardship in other areas is indirectly feeding the crime problem. Because it has wrecked the economy, young, impoverished men from poor communities sometimes with no means of income, no education, no resources and no hope are pushed into crime out of necessity.

This will be of little comfort to those on the receiving end, but the frustration being experienced at all levels manifests as a frightening level of rage and violence accompanying crimes of theft. In all this, let us return to the eye of this hurricane of horror: the prime minister.

Is it that he simply does not care? Is it that he and his government are happily incapable and incompetent? Is it that they like the idea of a traumatised populace who won’t notice that $3 billion went “missing” from the national accounts, or the recent draw down from the HSF?

The continued failures, the seeming apathy, and formulaic statements churned out every time a new milestone in terror has been crossed, all suggests a government that is not particularly concerned with crime. Crime does not affect those with police protection. It's the population who is left "to ketch."

DINESH RAMBALLY

MP, Chaguanas West