On the front page of the Daily Express (January 7) was the lifeless body of a young man killed by a Telecom Security Services officer. This type of news has become a norm for citizens. Meanwhile, the National Security Minister continues to boast about a decrease in serious crime for 2014 as compared to 2013, which is a great travesty on his part.
It is rather hypocritical and ludicrous for Gary Griffith to compare 2013 murder toll to 2014, as the number of murders for 2013 was 407 and last year closed with a murder toll of 403. If you do the math, there was four people less murdered. Four hundred and three murders to me is definitely not a decrease in crime when for each one of those murdered individuals a family was plunged into mourning, whether it was the criminal who died or a person(s) killed by criminal elements.
On what statistical evidence is the Minister of National Security making such absurd statements, when the Crime & Problem Analysis Branch (Capa) has yet to publish the crime statistics for August-December 2014.
Clearly, Gary Griffith is in a state of disillusionment and sleepwalking because evidence has shown that criminals are migrating to different parts of the country, as in the case of the dead man who is from Nelson Street, Port-of-Spain, but was robbing a roti shop in Barataria, hence the decrease in serious crimes in PoS and environs. Gary’s conjectures only exacerbate the disbelief and hopelessness citizens have in the protective services and legislative makers and processes.
Crime is no longer hidden but instead is being committed brazenly with citizens having to run for their lives in broad daylight, whilst criminals and police engage in shoot-outs like scenes from an action packed movie.
Perhaps the Minister of National Security should take a course in Sociology to better understand the dynamics and concepts of crime and gain insight to learn that crime is a social problem and not a political game and instead of adopting a bad-man persona and engaging “war talks” on criminals instead unravel the “why” there is an exponential increase in criminal activities and how to weed out the “real” criminals behind these criminals.
Simoiya Hector-Morales