President, Dr. Irfaan Ali’s powerful address at the 39th Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police sounds an alarm that deserves immediate attention across our region.
His assertion that “when crime thrives, progress dies” is a cold-blooded estimation of our present circumstances. The immediate economic cost of crime in Latin America and the Caribbean, at an estimated 3.44 per cent of GDP in 2022, translates into billions of dollars pilfered away from essential services and development initiatives.

The haemorrhage of resources is one that cannot be supported by developing nations already operating on tight budgets.
The President’s framing of crime as a “dollar stolen” from education, healthcare, and social protection hits at the very heart of our development issues. Every robbery, every corruption, every illicit transaction directly reduces our ability to take our children to school, to heal our ailing, and to protect our most vulnerable.

Tourism, the source of crucial funds for so many Caribbean nations, is most specifically threatened by the shadow of crime. When tourists choose other islands in fear of safety, the impact runs through our economies, involving all from hotel workers to taxi drivers to small shop owners.
President Ali’s condemnation of the politicisation of crime deserves particular mention. The politicisation of crime, or using fear of crime for political purposes, or employing crime as a vehicle of access to governmental office, represents a corruption of democratic principles.

As Ali properly contended during the ACCP conference, “Crime and criminality is not an opportunity to get into government. It is a societal issue that requires unity, not division”.
The recent rampage of violence in Guyana, where peaceful demonstrations spilled over into lootings and violence, speaks to how rapidly social order can be dismantled when crime is politicised for its own sake.
The growing involvement of youths in crime is arguably the most tragic of our regional crisis’s elements. When our schools become war zones and our neighborhoods are crime nurseries, we are not simply witnessing the theft of a generation.
The Guyana Government’s commitment to educational investment is the type of forward-looking planning necessary to provide alternatives to criminal avenues. It will only bear fruit in a secure and socially stable environment that presents fertile ground.

President Ali’s call for a “Caribbean Security Architecture” transcending national boundaries represents a prime acknowledgment of global criminal networks. The criminals have become international, so our response cannot be confined to geography.
Intelligence-sharing, co-ordinated activity, and co-ordinated legal mechanisms are not fantasy indulgences but realistic needs in the battle against internationalised organised crime. If transnational criminals can move unfettered while our security agencies are constrained by jurisdictional limitations, then the advantage unquestionably lies with lawlessness.

Equally important is ending the cultural myth-making of criminals. When criminals turn into folk heroes or popular culture heroes, we undermine the moral foundations that are necessary to uphold law-abiding communities.
This validation of crime inculcates a distorted value system where illegal means to gain wealth and power appear to be more attractive than hard work and participating in society. Media, artists, religious figures, and public officials must collaborate with security forces in presenting alternative narratives that heighten the profile of compliant citizenship.

President Ali’s characterisation of the ACCP conference as a “workshop of action” rather than one of conversation responds to the urgency of the sense of our regional security crisis. The age of university debate and theoretical paradigms has passed.
What our Caribbean countries need now are concrete steps, measurable outcomes, and visible evidence of progress in reclaiming our communities from crime. The health of our democracies, the strength of our economies, and the security of our citizens depend on translating wise words into strong action. As citizens, we are obliged to ensure that our leaders are held to account, not just for the talk on crime but for instituting the systematic, sustained effort this crisis calls for.