Use technology to track people

Policemen and women could never be made into social workers, guidance officers, community psychologists and school psychologists. The major helping characteristic which such persons possess is that of being non-judgemental. Policemen, by the very nature of their profession, are judgemental. They handcuff people, and if they feel threatened by someone they shoot first. I remember a journalist writing that he did not dare go into his bag for his camera because he knew that he could have been shot dead. Of course, the police would have made a judgement that he was going into his bag.

If community policing means policing the community, then by all means get the police back on the beat, walking the streets of the community, with the old notion that when citizens see a police uniform they straighten up. The police officers who are carefully chosen for this role must be people friendly. They must have the heart for this. However, do not expect citizens to trust the police in the light of what is going on in our society today. Do not expect genuine responses from citizens who are afraid of and do not trust the police. The foundation of any successful relationship is trust; therefore the police service will have to get its "house in order" first, if trust is to thrive between citizens and the police.

I cannot understand why the voice in the wilderness which is clamouring for more social workers who visit homes, for more guidance officers in schools and for more subsidies for those citizens who cannot afford to seek out the help of professionals when they are in urgent need, is meeting deaf ears. There are young men who are trying so hard to do better than their parents, but are being abused by mothers, because fathers have abandoned them. Mothers are angry and frustrated and need help to handle life’s challenges. When I come across these young men, I should be able to get in touch with a social worker who will do a home visit and get a social history and help this family get its act together so that we do not have more angry and frustrated young men on the street. National Family Services is understaffed and overwhelmed. This is where the budget could have put some of its focus. I understand also that many of these social workers have not been paid since February. This is immoral.

Here is a scenario that I fantasise about here in Trinidad and Tobago. I was driving with my sister in Miami over the vacation when her cell phone rang. This was at about 6 pm. After she answered it, she quickly put the phone to my ear. My mouth popped open when I heard an automated voice saying: "Your child was absent from school today. Please address this situation." Actually my niece had been absent because she was with another aunt in Dominica. Heavy rains had cancelled flights. She missed the reopening of school. We had been into the school three times to inform them about this and to get her schedule for the term and to make sure that they were aware of the situation. Yet this automated voice message still came every evening as long as she was absent.

My sister said to me that the teachers submit the names of those who are absent every day from each class, these names are fed into the computer in the office and then it goes to a server at the local telephone company be it ATT or which ever, and the message is automatically sent to the parent’s home and cell phones. There is a place in this world where this happens. Shouldn’t we be working on getting in touch with this technology so that we can keep track of children and young people who were absent from school? Then the social workers and school psychologists will get on the case if parents are not addressing the absenteeism. This is where we need to spend the money, not in community policing that is destined to fail.

Come on people, the technological age is here to help us to create some order in our lives. Not making use of it for the benefit of the citizenry and the development of society is immoral. Making the technology work for us is not a political act it is a sociological necessity, therefore this has nothing to do with politics having a morality of its own. "Put a han’ Lord."

ANNA MARIA MORA

Counselling Psychologist

Port-of-Spain