Dear Editor,
Take it from me, Guyana has nowhere to go until the crime situation is brought well under control. It is important for all Guyanese to know this. In assessing government performance on crime over the last 19 years we must ask ourselves whether we feel any safer in our homes at night, or even in broad daylight than we did 10, 15 or 18 years ago. We must then ask ourselves who is responsible for public safety and whether they have done as much as they can to improve the crime situation. Finally we must ask ourselves why we believe that those entrusted with public safety can, in the next 5 years, do what they failed miserably to do in the last 19.
Few can deny that Guyana has seen an explosion in crime and a worsening since 2002. Few can deny the commonsense connection between unemployment and crime; poverty and crime; perceived or real marginalization and crime or family breakdown and crime. Some of us are reluctant to recognize what we know in our hearts that government has been ineffective in dealing with the country’s crime problem.
Government apologists tell us that crime is also rife in other Caribbean countries. We are expected to take comfort that our murder rate periodically misses the number one spot in this hemisphere. Some apologists tell us crime is prevalent because the ABC countries are unwilling to give us the level and type of assistance required to fight and detect crime. Of course we happen to know this is far from the truth. Recently a British $1.7 Billion crime-fighting package was withheld because of our government’s unwillingness to embrace meaningful security sector reform. Clearly the political will is just not there. Public confidence in the police has been eroded and respect for the police is a thing of the past. People who fear the police tend to withhold their cooperation in helping solve crimes and preventing them. This situation has been allowed to deteriorate to the extent that anything short of a complete overhaul of the system will simply not work. As a seasoned security czar we can expect that David Granger and his crime-fighting team will, before long, tame the criminally inclined and restore safe communities. Policing, after acknowledged improvement under Hoyte, has been systematically undermined by the constant interference from plodding politicians who are enthralled by the status quo even as they selfishly protect themselves and families in excessive and expensive ways. Since 1992 our under-funded, under-equipped and underpaid policemen and women have been given a basket to fetch water. The result of all this neglect and frustration is that the principle of policing by consent, which is responsible for ensuring our security at work and at home, is at risk.
We have become an entombed society cringing behind locked gates, iron-grilled windows and bolted doors; dependent on security guards, dogs, electronic security systems, and sundry weapons of mass destruction to keep ourselves and families safe even as we fight sleep fearing the dark and ubiquitous power outages. Fellow Guyanese none of this has to be. If in doubt on election day vote for a good night’s sleep and a relatively crime free Christmas.
Yours faithfully
F Hamley Case
