THE EBB AND FLOW OF THE CRIMINAL PRESENCE

– A definite rise at this time, and our responsibility is…?

THE lawbreaker does not drop into our midst from the sky or any unidentified place unknown to us. The lawbreaker emerges from within our human collective. Thus, it is our responsibility to explore where and why? The lawbreaker is inflicting his anger and haunting us at this or any time.

It is easy to point fingers and especially if we have lost cherished and hard-to-replace items, more so if bodily injury or the loss of life has occurred. We can demand the most primitive justice, beat suspects to death, guilty or not, accuse “Tom” for “Dick” and demonise “Harry” and we-society, have done that over and over including long for Karma to inflict its cycle of judgement on our violators. Like them, we’re human, but the troubling phenomenon keeps repeating itself. Most of the accused that are presented before us on social and in print media are male, with a percentage slant to young males.

To prevent ourselves from any questions as to why this is happening, that might demand any accountability and even meaningful participation from ‘us,’ we easily proceed to join the rabble-rousing accusations and self-righteous condemnations, the condemnation is not invalid, but if that’s all there is, then there is some dishonesty or mental challenge at play. Did I say young men? so let’s start there. I’ve penned articles in the past on the custom or practice that occurs with especially single-parent families. Where for one reason or the other both contributing parents are not there, an elder brother and in some cases a sister is taken out of school to supplement the family, that person loses a tremendous part of normalcy.

When I say “elder” that age could be between 13-16 years old. Most cases that I’ve observed and can verify to, it was a still younger offspring that went bad, having witnessed the social fracture and in its confusion cannot extract any inspiration from within the home, which is overburdened by the challenges of basic life (some food, shelter and clothing) and if the mood of the neighbourhood offers the exclusive bright lure, into the dark side as an answer, then the enveloping darkness is embraced.

But how is this downslide intercepted? This does not rest with the Police alone, this in the first stage lies with the Ministry of Education, the return of the School Inspector must be imminent. I can still remember the School Inspector who visited homes to inquire why students missed classes for so many days. School reports with absent days required accountability from parents. To put it in context, children within homes where reading, education were not priorities, and the cost of sending children to school was an accepted “here or neither there condition” for real or not so real reasons did not terminate that child from a future void of living skills, training in the industrial arts were positive opened doors to earning; that was then.

There are too many semi-literate and illiterate people of all ages in our towns and villages. But what I’ve described must not be cast into a formula for any upsurge of crime, as many people with literacy problems do earn an honest living. What must not be repeated are the errors of the past, the ‘independent Policing groups’ (Policing groups must work along with other relevant institutional guidance) infiltrated by questionable characters masquerading as businessmen, and others scheming to help themselves up the social ladder and establish partial dependableness at any cost, this can be said because countless references are rooted in the past that can be drawn upon. “Interception” is the greatest asset in social management.

I’ve laid the cry over the years across governments that the advent of narcotics in the late ‘80s was never met with an aggressive counter-information and Edutainment programme, that include school debates etc. Narcotics and a world where exclusive muscle driven labour is in decline, in a country where the economy has never addressed the potential of out of the box niche businesses are all bad components towards keeping a following generation gainfully employed.

The initiatives that must address the evident crime context must be addressed by recognising the failures in respect to monitoring “who’s who” in our schools, developing assistance and support alternatives, I’m talking School Inspectors, address the accountability of parents, redirect students to skills training centres, those centres not empowered, empower. Repair community centres and grounds to encourage activities, organised, not ad hoc, sports and cultural edutainment programmes, use the best minds available. But spare none found guilty of repeat offences, but hold high the understanding that prison without mechanisms of rehabilitation is in itself counterproductive to the taxpayer.

I’ve visited schools in a group called RESCU to discuss the impact of narcotics on mental development, and careers, the schools we were invited to were not inspiring, there was need to be disturbed, we did report this to relevant authorities. But it’s widespread, the loss of human-community responsibility, if you make an error and leave anything here and go there, it’s a rare chance in retracing your tracks, you will get that “anything” back, very rare, and I’m talking from experience.

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