CRUEL MIND GAMES

RUTHLESS criminals are now targetting innocent young children for kidnapping, hoping that the parents in great fear and concern for their children's safety would be frightened into quickly paying whatever ransoms are demanded for their release. They play cruel mind games with the parents and families of the victims, knowing that they would be traumatised and virtually ready to do anything within their ability to secure the early release of the children.

We cannot believe or accept that the police are as helpless as they appear to be in dealing with the issue of kidnapping, unless of course some of the members of the service are — as some people insist — involved in the dastardly acts. We believe that the police must stop making excuses and use every resource in the book, including proper intelligence gathering to deal in the strictest possible way and as urgently as possible with those who are terrorising the lives of our citizens. We simply cannot continue living our lives, constantly looking over our shoulders and locking up our young children in protective cages. That is no way to live and as taxpayers we must insist that our government and our police service secure for us the security to which we are entitled.

This is after all a small country with a relatively small population and it cannot be beyond the capability of our security forces to try to root out this evil which seems to grow more fearsome by the day, with young six year olds now being grabbed at school and held until families can find the money to pay for their safe release. In the few cases where arrests and charges have been laid, those charged are quickly out on bail and apparently free to repeat the crimes. Those charged with kidnapping, in our view, should be denied bail until the courts decide whether they are innocent or guilty. We simply cannot take the chance that there could be repeaters. This is why every attempt must be made to have the laws changed to allow for greater penalties for persons convicted of kidnapping, as well as the automatic refusal of bail for alleged kidnappers. The issue is too grave to be a political battle between the government and the opposition, regardless of whether the row is over constitutional reform, the restructuring of Caroni or action against racial discrimination. Kidnappers are not discriminating, neither on grounds of wealth, race or age. From the oldest to the youngest is now fair game. By playing around with the legislation, we are virtually surrendering to the criminals.

On Thursday, Father Clyde Harvey, manager of the San Fernando Boys Roman Catholic School on Harris Promenade, was constrained to appeal to the kidnappers of a six-year-old pupil of the school, Mark Prescott, to stop using children as pawns. Mark, one of a growing list of children who have been kidnapped within recent months, was snatched from outside his school and spirited away. The updating and changing of laws by themselves will not be sufficient. All over this land people will have to understand the problems and issues that give rise in the first place to such criminality. For example, it has been the experience of countries, such as Colombia, that the drug culture is the foundation upon which acts of kidnapping spring and grow. So the evil has to be tackled on many fronts if we are to avoid the trauma being experienced by families who are being made to suffer the consequences of having a loved one kidnapped.