(reproduced from the Trinidad Express)
WHY are all our governments so engrossed in this monstrous misconception that when the death count rises, ministers of national security should be replaced for a more effective handling of crime in our society? They continue to cause gross embarrassment to the poor gentlemen by creating the false impression that they are so hopelessly unsuitable and incompetent for the task that they should be removed for a worthier replacement.
From Martin Joseph to Howard Chin-Lee, then on to the high-profile John Sandy and more lately to the ever-conquering Jack Austin Warner and Emmanuel George and now Gary Griffith. If Jack Warner failed to shine, then who will ever succeed?
The fact of the matter is that neither ministers of government nor policemen/women can bring an end to the wickedness of the wicked. They just cannot so easily rest their hands on every evil-doer to prevent him or her from committing a crime, except in cases where they have organised and pre-planned to combat violence; for example, street protests and parades. They just cannot be everywhere at the same time to prevail over crime and violence.
Of course, we cannot just merely fold our arms and close our eyes to the evil. But there must be sense in whatever we attempt to do.
We have already missed the opportunity to deal with our youth some 20 years ago, as I mentioned in a previous letter. We have failed miserably to mould them into better citizens of today by missing the golden opportunity at school and at church (or temple or mosque) to confront them, and expose them to worthy exemplars for their positive transformation from beast into man. And so we are now sadly seeing the result in tears.
Added to the travesty, we continue to place unwarranted emphasis on crime detection rather than crime prevention, as though it so much matters that we catch the culprit after the victim has already been maimed or murdered. Crime prevention is the more logical way to go.
But more important should be criminal-detection over crime-detection for the obvious reason. If we can bring the criminal under surveillance and control, the potential crime would be avoided.
Crime solution is therefore somewhere in the above and not in the willy-nilly replacement of ministers of national security every time the death toll rises. What a monumental misunderstanding and mismanagement of crime and violence in our otherwise sweet and beautiful T&T.
Jack Harrington | via e-mail
WHY are all our governments so engrossed in this monstrous misconception that when the death count rises, ministers of national security should be replaced for a more effective handling of crime in our society? They continue to cause gross embarrassment to the poor gentlemen by creating the false impression that they are so hopelessly unsuitable and incompetent for the task that they should be removed for a worthier replacement.
From Martin Joseph to Howard Chin-Lee, then on to the high-profile John Sandy and more lately to the ever-conquering Jack Austin Warner and Emmanuel George and now Gary Griffith. If Jack Warner failed to shine, then who will ever succeed?
The fact of the matter is that neither ministers of government nor policemen/women can bring an end to the wickedness of the wicked. They just cannot so easily rest their hands on every evil-doer to prevent him or her from committing a crime, except in cases where they have organised and pre-planned to combat violence; for example, street protests and parades. They just cannot be everywhere at the same time to prevail over crime and violence.
Of course, we cannot just merely fold our arms and close our eyes to the evil. But there must be sense in whatever we attempt to do.
We have already missed the opportunity to deal with our youth some 20 years ago, as I mentioned in a previous letter. We have failed miserably to mould them into better citizens of today by missing the golden opportunity at school and at church (or temple or mosque) to confront them, and expose them to worthy exemplars for their positive transformation from beast into man. And so we are now sadly seeing the result in tears.
Added to the travesty, we continue to place unwarranted emphasis on crime detection rather than crime prevention, as though it so much matters that we catch the culprit after the victim has already been maimed or murdered. Crime prevention is the more logical way to go.
But more important should be criminal-detection over crime-detection for the obvious reason. If we can bring the criminal under surveillance and control, the potential crime would be avoided.
Crime solution is therefore somewhere in the above and not in the willy-nilly replacement of ministers of national security every time the death toll rises. What a monumental misunderstanding and mismanagement of crime and violence in our otherwise sweet and beautiful T&T.
Jack Harrington | via e-mail
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