Dear Editor,
In soteriology (the study of Jesus as the Christ, or the study of salvation), we theologians speak of the “Now but Not Yet.” This philosophical, salvific, conundrum pressed heavily on my mind as I contemplated the oft repeated, so called escalation of crimes, in Guyana. The application of this soteriological concept is this: The new administration is doing their best Now, but their true potential is Not Yet seen. The truth is that since the new administration came into power, the number of crimes has been drastically reduced. But it all depends on who you ask. For example: One former official is asking for payments in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, for work that has no objective process for its measurement. The government is refusing to pay him. Several secret bank accounts were unearthed containing millions. A group has sent in an invoice for $100 million for payment for some handshake, back-street deal. The government is refusing to pay them also. Then we have the situation with the transfer of government owned vehicles.
These are only a few of the publicized, questionable activities that have been halted since the new administration took office. And we are still in the first quarter of the honeymoon.
However, because of the construct of our Guyanese’ minds (a subtle belief that blue collar crimes are worse than white collar crimes), we are claiming that there is an escalation in crimes. Pound for pound, more monies have been saved and reclaimed from the coffers of the white collar criminals than those that have been lost to the actions of the blue collar criminals.
I am pressing this new administration to formulate as a part of their crime prevention strategy, a formal system of interviewing the career criminals in the prisons in Guyana. Let them send into the prisons individuals skilled in the art of passive interrogation, with the intention of hearing from these criminals what is their modus operandi. I am suggesting this approach because having worked as a criminologist and prison chaplain in the US, I know that you can reduce crime if you understand why the convicted have been committed in the first place.
Additionally, I am convinced that if we were to get into the minds of the blue collar criminals, we will find a preponderance of cases which will suggest that the barefaced, callous, wanton behaviour of the (white collar) criminals provided a catalyst for the behaviour of the (blue collar) criminals. I think that we will also find that the upsurge in blue collar crimes is directly related to the notion that these low-level criminals know that their days are numbered and so they are desperately trying to grab as much as they can. These blue collar, nuisance, criminals know that this new administration will go after all criminals, and since many of them are unemployed or under employed, they are in a mad rush to loot and store up their illicit booty and gains. It might not even be farfetched to conjure that what you will find is that some of the white collar criminals are facilitating and encouraging these blue collar criminals. So while the Granger administration needs to continue to work feverishly to provide the public security that the Guyanese citizen are ‘Not Yet’ experiencing – a reduction in blue collar crimes, they need not take their eyes off of what they are doing ‘Now’ ‒ reducing the white collar crimes.
Yours faithfully,
Pastor W P Jeffrey