National Dialog on Crime

There is a great deal that I do not know, let me just state that at the outset. There is however, one thing that I know for sure and that is that there is a need for a national solution to the national problem that is crime in Trinidad & Tobago.

I suppose it’s easy enough for me, sitting here thousands of miles away, to pontificate about what should be being done and where energy and resources should be focused. Here, it’s called Monday morning quarterbacking…..you weren’t on the football field calling any of the plays on Sunday night, but here you come now, after the fact (usually after the game has been lost), ready with all the solutions. That’s one way to look at it. Another way might be to say that I have the benefit of distance which affords me a clearer picture, a bird’s eye view of the situation.

The big question is this: What is the state of national dialog on crime? Is there such a dialog? If there is, who is involved? One of the things I’m clear about is that a situation that impacts the whole nation requires the inputs of the whole nation to be fixed. If we trust each citizen over the age of 21 with the power of a vote, surely citizens can also be trusted with the power of an idea, a thought on how to address the current crime situation in Trinidad & Tobago? If not, politicians should bear in mind that any dialog that seeks to find a solution and then impose that solution on people who were not involved in the process, has a very high probability of failure. My point simply put is this: a nation in crisis needs to harness the collective energy of the affected parties (that would be all of us) if we expect to meaningfully treat with the crisis in front of us.

It seems to me that there are multiple reasons for the soaring crime rate. Let me suggest a few: integrity (or a lack thereof in public and private life); arrogance (an excess thereof in public life); respect (a lack thereof in public and private life); and a dearth of real opportunities to improve one’s lot. Add to those an unequal access to quality education, ‘trickle down’ economics that ent trickling and totally skewed attitudes to money and what not having it says about you as a person, and what you have is a veritable lethal dose of negatives that is poisoning us all.

So those are my thoughts. I have no idea whether there’s anyone out there listening. Sometimes, we just have to toss things up into the air and hope that someone will catch them. I’m not in Trinidad so I won’t know (except via the emails of friends) whether any dialog really begins. All I can do is have a thought, share it, and hope for the best. I don’t believe that thought is futile. In fact, I believe just the opposite: that thought is where all social action and social change begins. Ask Barack Obama, he could tell you a thing or two about that.