FORTY-ODD murders in 35 days is a ridiculously high number for a country of 1.3 million people, and we should be getting little comfort from statistics that indicate the numbers may or may not be minimally down from last year.

The fact of the matter is that one murder per year is one murder too many, and we have to face up to the fact that as long as our people are killing each other we are failing as a society. More importantly to this issue, the way that our successive governments have been doing business where social management is concerned is contributing in no small way to this horrific state of affairs and we need to bring the discussion back to here.

Make no mistake we are at the mercy of the criminal underworld, and unless we get this right nothing else is going to matter, especially to those left to mourn our failure to get it right.

For some unfathomable reason we continue to deal with the issue of our national security in reverse by reacting to events after they occur, knowing full well that that does not work. We know that the overwhelming majority of our murders are due to gang violence due to massive poverty, broken communities and the temptation of easy money from the drug trade and money laundering, yet we are dealing with the issue everywhere else but right there. Throwing hundreds of millions of dollars behind wild schemes, hoping and praying that something ‘sticks’ is not the way to address this and we need to revisit our approach. The problem has to be dealt with from a social management perspective first, taking the necessary steps to mitigate violent crime at the cause level; until a worker earning minimum wage can work towards purchasing a home, our economy and our social management policies will remain sufficiently out of whack that they continue to fuel the allure of a life of crime. You cannot tell people to do the right thing without making avenues for them to get ahead and expect them to toe that line.

Before we do anything else we need to streamline our protective services so that they can become functional – dispense with the multiples of titles, departments and agencies (which only serve to inhibit the best performance through unnecessary channels, bureaucracy and chains of command) and repurpose the security services into one functional organisation with land, sea and air divisions, precincted by constituency and working in harmony with the communities that they protect and serve. This apparatus must also serve as the strong arm and consequence of an adequately streamlined and repurposed Social Management Ministry with objectives as indicated above.

We need to end the ongoing charade where the drug trade is concerned and decide if we’re serious about stopping it or not. If it is our intention to bring it to an end then it is my position that we are going to need help. We should not be expected to underwrite the cost of policing our borders when the illegal drugs and all of the associative ills flowing into our country from that trade are a function of US demand. The United States MUST acknowledge the significant role they play in the havoc being wrought on our shores and should be made to step up and assist. I propose inviting the United States Coast Guard to patrol our coasts, to set up bases on the four corners of Trinidad and to work with our protective services to police our seas to interdict and confiscate drugs and the machinery of the trade. We also need to unstuff every container on the port and no shipping containers should be allowed to leave the port under any circumstances whatsoever. All importers must be made to unstuff and cart their wares utilising ‘unstuffing’ facilities set up specifically for that purpose.

Finally, the ease with which illegal guns are available to the criminal element in this country has to be brought to an abrupt end. We need to simultaneously take the guns out of the criminals hands while making it too frightful an enterprise to consider picking one up in the first place. We need simple legislation brought to the Parliament – if you are caught with an unlicensed firearm there should be mandatory jail time with the firearm confiscated and destroyed. Second time offenders should face significantly increased jail time with a three strikes and you’re out penalty. A specialised anti-gun task force and a dedicated gun court complete with gun crimes detention facility will all go a long way towards reducing this scourge, and as we have been suggesting this for years now, I cannot for the life of me understand why it has not been implemented as yet.

Finally, we need to stop putting square pegs in round holes. Allowing financiers, investors and party hacks government contracts as payback is one thing, putting them in sensitive governmental positions is something else entirely and the practice should be discontinued. All key Ministries should be mandated to produce plans showing estimated timelines for firm deliverables and all Ministers should have their positions bound by them. From this we would be able to manage the most sensitive of our human resources so as to get the right people into the right positions to deliver much needed results, and we would also be able to identify those failing miserably and who may need to be reassigned. Let us be clear, our intention should not just be to wage a war on crime but to win it, and we cannot unless we take the necessary steps required to make that happen.

Phillip Edward Alexander