Bad and good news on crime

That day it was learnt that 100 people have been killed so far in 2006, which was five days short of us even reaching the first three months of this year. At this rate the country is on target to have 400 murder victims by the end of the year. Trinidad and Tobago is heading towards a grim “record.” It’s nothing to be proud about.

But Monday also brought good news. Our politicians put aside their squabbling in the House of Representatives and passed the three Police Reform Bills.

We hope that these Bills will let the Government unclog many of the bottlenecks in its fight against the violent crime plaguing this country.

Man or woman, rich or poor — all have been victims of the brutality being unleashed daily by callous criminals. We are glad that politicians on both sides of the divide have acknowledged the public outcry for concerted action against the criminals and have worked together on this legislation. The Bills will untie the hands of the Commissioner of Police to manage the Police Force. He can hire and fire junior officers, a power previously given to the Police Service Commission (PSC).

The Bills also saw the Prime Minister surrender to Parliament his formal veto of the appointment of Commissioner, although some observers note that he effectively retains control through his majority in Parliament. We hope that the new laws will be fully enacted. While the Bills are lengthy, consisting in total of some 145 clauses, we hope that the Government and Opposition will not let them get bogged down before becoming effective. We note already a disagreement arising. The new changes can only be made with adequate resources including financing, human resources, and physical resources, and some say this can only be organised by a Government-appointed executive committee, while others say this can be done by the Commissioner of Police himself.

Whichever is correct, the country expects its elected representatives to maintain the consensus that has brought the Bills this far.

While Prime Minister Patrick Manning has told citizens not to expect any overnight solution to crime, we say show us the light at the end of the tunnel.

However bureaucratic is the implementation of the Bills, the country has waited long enough for decisive action against the lawless, and we can hardly be expected to wait much longer for results. The crime wave has to be stopped! The Government has offered too many red herrings as the panacea to crime — Operation Anaconda, the Eye-in-the-Sky (largely unmanned, it transpires), blimps (one which is said to be hobbling back to the United States), and maybe even the 39 British police officers due next month. While we are glad the Police Bills were passed, that is not the end of the story.

We say that the causes of crime are multiple. We hope that in effecting these Bills, the Government also keeps sight of the other measures needed to tackle crime. By now it must be clear to the Government that crime must be tackled by prevention, detection and punishment.

We believe that policing is one aspect of reducing crime, but that there is also a longer-term, “softer” aspect involving uplifting peoples’ lifestyles. Education, employment, housing, social services, family life, leisure and religious worship, all have a role to play.

We truly hope and pray that the collective efforts of our elected leaders will cut short the macabre mathematics that are pointing to a 400-person death toll by year-end.