Crime and property tax

The question remains as to how we ended up here at this place where all are grappling with tentative solutions to a situation which seems to hold little promise of getting better.

It can safely be said that indiscipline starts in the home and continues in the school system, leading straight into adulthood.

Therefore, indisciplined youth who don’t listen to their parents will not listen to their teachers and no one else later on in society.

In trying to solve crime we must first look at its roots — the social and economic factors which come into play in an individual’s background in the case of street violence. In terms of white-collar crime, it is the accessibility to commit crime and the apparent fact that there are no consequences to face, as millions of dollars are lost at the expense of the taxpayer while the alleged culprit gets away scot-free.

It appears that on all levels it is out of hand. More money is continuously distributed to the Ministry of National Security but national security only comes into play after the fact, such as the case of a five-year-old killed execution style. In other words, what is the prevention, not the cure.

When we look at officials who once held high office tearing government documents to shreds on a stage and encouraging the population to follow, we cannot wonder why indiscipline in schools is such a problem.

When we see officials in public life paying property taxes for property on foreign soil yet not wanting to pay on property at home, we should understand how some Trinis feel about the land of their birth.

We have become lawless and violent and many who complain about the current state of the country themselves are responsible in large part for its decline by their attitudes.

Almost everywhere you turn, the youths are looking on and when you think of them being guided by some of these examples you shudder. We fail to realise that while we politicise every issue the doors are wide open for the madness to continue and it is literally the children’s future that is on the line.

So far it appears as though we are failing them, hence the crime and the lack of respect for authority and country.

It is like the blind leading the blind and we as adults must buck up and take responsibility for our homeland and pay our taxes so that the workers at the so-called “bottom of the barrel” — from the garbage truck worker to the road paver — can do their jobs to make our country as beautiful as those First World countries where we spend our savings and then boast are so clean and well put together. In case some did not know, the reasons for them being that way are taxes.

LORREN MEDFORD- PRYCE via email