Deosaran wants action on crime

INDEPENDENT Senator Prof Ramesh Deosaran is demanding that the Government state exactly what it is doing to tackle violent crime and when results can be expected. Failing such an assurance and real action to remedy the crisis, Deosaran will ask the Senate to censure Minister of National Security, Martin Joseph. So said Deosaran yesterday at a news conference at the Red House. He gave reporters copies of his motion before the Senate which says that despite vast sums spent, the Government has failed to cut crime which has severe psychological, social and economic consequences.

The motion which expresses concern over the Government’s performance on crime, calls on the Government to explain its failure, and tells the Government to give specific performance targets and concrete measures against crime. He asked other Senators to give way to his motion which he hoped could be debated within two or three weeks. Deosaran wanted Attorney-General John Jeremie to tell the Senate how many persons in the past 10 years who were given bail for serious offences like kidnapping and robbery were later charged for further offences?

He supported Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls’ complaint that Judges were overturning the refusal by magistrates to grant bail to certain offenders. Deosaran wanted the law to be changed to prohibit this practice which he said was undermining the Magistracy. He offered the businessmen the services of his Centre of Criminology at the University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine to set up their own Crime Analysis and Policy Unit.