Mr Commissioner, do the honourable thing

He has not made any significant progress with crime reduction and the country is hurting as a result.

The Commissioner is also being evasive and fails to admit this messy crime situation is a crisis. The time has come for us to admit that our country’s approach to crime has failed and will continue to fail if we continue doing the same thing over and over again.

There is a point where political correctness does not cut it anymore. There is a point where spending money does not make the problem go away.

There comes a time when the rhetoric does not work and that time is now.

Our crime plan has to go beyond blaming citizens for not acting as a “mature and responsible society” and calling for cooperation with the police.

When asked about the upward spiral in murders, our Police Commissioner admitted there was a problem then shifted to say we are not in crisis and there was a 25 percent decrease in violence.

Are we to really accept this type of response when an average of two people were murdered a day in the first month of the year? This violence has obviously escalated into a serious problem of Mafia-style murders, kidnappings and an apparent reduction in people reporting acts of violence. People are scared and the authorities have to significantly change their approach to make citizens feel safe.

Where are we heading if our biggest budget item has consistently moved away from education to national security over the years? This year, for example, we are spending $7.625 billion on national security and $7.222 billion on education. However, the crime situation continues to worsen.

This is a negative indicator on the global scene. Should we really be asking why tourism is falling? The increased spending on national security now seems like a labour policy instead of part of a crime reduction policy. We are employing more people in national security yet we are not feeling safer or seeing any noteworthy reduction in crime.

In the midst of this crisis in crime, our commissioner has no recommendations or responses to the Government on critical national dialogue.

You don’t have to agree with all of the recent recommendations put forward in relation to crime.

However, there has been no meaningful dialogue on resuming the death penalty which already exists in our legislation, no dialogue on relaxing the stringent requirements for granting firearm licences, no dialogue on a strategic state of emergency, no dialogue on the anti-gang legislation and the list goes on. A crime detection rate of below ten percent is an indicator of who is really in control of crime.

Ag Police Commissioner Williams must do the honourable thing and step down.

He should not let history remember him as a failure but as a man who did his best and gave someone else the opportunity to help us all.

Ronald Huggins St Joseph