Creating Frankensteins

There are so many of us with the mindset of that half dead felon (when his mind was working) who look for depraved vengeance not realising that society continues to be debased and dehumanised when states and countries insist on hanging/executing incompetent and invalids. We in Trinidad and Tobago are no better off than the states of California and Texas when it comes to our approach in crime and punishment and criminology in general. Apart from passing draconian laws and seeking to hang convicts by the dozens, no effect has been made to seek and root out the causes of crime which starts in the early childhood environment. That same environment creates the Frankensteins, socio paths and psychopaths at the critical age of the child/infant. We wait until the child becomes a teenager/adult, has mutated into a criminal/deviant and then seek to administer punishment. Our rehabilitation programmes are lacking and we are yet to introduce a proper parole system. I am told that many businessmen and families are either moving to or investing in countries near or far afield because of our rising crime rate. Recently I went to Canada and while there I asked my doctor "When next are you coming to Trinidad?" His response was "Who me?" "For 2006 (and this was Wednesday 4th) there have already been 6 murders!" I had not read a Trinidad paper since the beginning of 2006.

Our qualified citizens living abroad are staying away and our citizens here are seeking refuge in Canada, Barbados, St Lucia and other foreign authorities. And the incompetence/mismanagement goes on unabated.

M HOTIN

St James