Crisis in crime fighting

The Minister of Public Security insists “serious crime is decreasing” and spew out statistics to “prove” his contention. But the populace is unmoved, since their experience tells them otherwise. Even outside observers like the former Chief of Staff and the British Ambassador have explained the widespread scepticism by showing why people dismiss “lies, damned lies and statistics”.
All across the country, the cry is: “Why isn’t the Government getting a grip on crime?” After all, this was one of their major planks during the elections campaign. Not so long ago the citizens of Berbice and Essequibo used to see crime as a Georgetown problem, but no more. Anxiety, frustration and fear are palpable across the country. The present crime situation is not only quantitatively different from what prevails in other jurisdictions but possibly also qualitatively so.
Commentators cite Guyana becoming a major trans-shipment point for hard drugs as a reason for the bump in crime. But one spill-off from the drug trade has been the percolation of drug use into our coastal communities. Most policymakers and analysts appear to be unaware of what is going on in the villages. This drug culture has resulted not only in the destruction of the lives of so many of our youths – many not even yet teenagers – but in the creation of an endemic criminal element who prey on their hapless neighbours. And as Brigadier Philips pointed out, these criminals now have guns freely available and are practised in unleashing the most vicious forms of violence on their victims. They are patterning their viciousness from the gunmen who were given political support when they took on the State between 1998 and 2008 – and the drug gangs that took them on and each other. And therein lies a lesson. As crime spreads once again like a dark and malignant cancer across our land, it has grown increasingly virulent. At each stage, the criminals incorporate the older, prevalent modus operandi into their repertoire then go on to devise some new and greater sadistic twist in an ever-increasing spiral of degradation for their victims.
ROAR had identified the nexus between politics and criminality as a constant when it launched in 1999. The “Choke and rob” gangs of the sixties were succeeded by the kick-down-the-door-bandits of the seventies and eighties and they by the “resistance fighters” of the first millennium decade – and they all had connections with politics and politicians. While most don’t see this government having any skin in the present crime crisis, nevertheless, once violence of any stripe is introduced as a tactic to make a political point, it remains as a fixture in the criminal arsenal. If we are ever to get a grip on crime in Guyana, we will have to sever the links between politics and crime. Poverty and destitution have also been identified as breeding grounds for crime and criminality. This statement should not be a point of disputation: all across the globe, the correlation between crime and poverty holds. But there is the riposte from many in Guyana: that there are many communities here that are poor but do not resort to crime. However, this does not sever the correlation but rather suggests there are other factors in addition to poverty that propel some into crime.  The causative factors for criminal behaviours must be identified and tackled. But so must be the constraints on a more effective police force. From this side of the law and order line, we certainly will not solve crime with statistics, nor, God forbids, by claiming our neighbours have greater crime rates. The Police have been equipped and they must now be professionalised, both operationally and compositionally.
How long will the Government ignore the recommendations of the Disciplined Forces Commission (on which the President sat) and Parliament approved?  This demanded the Police and well as all the Disciplined Forces reflect the composition of our country’s population as part of their professionalisation.
Crime can bring down not only our state but each one of us. This is not a partisan issue and it should not be treated as such.