EDITORIAL

Crackdown on crime now

Tuesday,  May 31, 2005

It is often the case in developing societies that damaging evolutions can come upon us insidiously, like a thief in the night; no warning bells are rung; no concerned voices are raised; no obvious evidence presents itself; but suddenly we wake up one morning to the stark reality of an unforeseen dilemma. 

Unlike that scenario, today, in Grand Cayman, there is a case of trouble looming, with the warning signs clearly there before us, in the area of rapidly rising crime in this country. Granted, we’re not being stopped on street corners by robbers, and our children are not being kidnapped for ransom, but the emerging anti-social behaviour in today’s Grand Cayman is a distinct sign that one of the priorities for our new Government must be a coordinated crackdown on crime, otherwise those things will indeed eventually descend upon us. 

Recent events including daytime gunplay in our Public Hospital; frequent reports of the rising number of guns in private hands; the recent vicious attack on a female in West Bay; retribution slayings; brazen robberies; and many more instances of unreported acts of crime are bells ringing to alert us that it is time to act, and the contention that these are isolated matters is coming from heads firmly buried in the sand. 

To look even casually is to see that there is a climate of lawlessness, or disregard for order, probably fuelled by the lack of consequences, that has been brewing in this country for some time, and the flames of this disorder have been apparently fanned following Hurricane Ivan’s landfall when circumstances, often bordering on chaos, descended on us.

It would be wise for us to pay attention to our neighbouring societies where similar transgressions, minor at first, were originally treated superficially by law enforcement and government officials, for political reasons, only to find that the monster, once let out of the cage, could not easily be put back under restraint. 

The lesson is there for us in other countries in the region where police forces seem to have lost the battle against the organized criminals, often better armed than police, many with criminal techniques acquired in metropolitan areas, who seem to be able to do their deeds with impunity — week after mournful week. 

Sadly, this is the pattern today, at this very hour, in places such as Trinidad, Guyana and Jamaica. The Cayman Islands is not immune, as we now know even St. Lucia and Antigua are not.

The lesson is there before us, stark and threatening, and we only have ourselves to blame if we ignore it. Undoubtedly, it will be a difficult and sometimes arduous exercise for our law enforcement people and great resolve and many resources will have to be applied to the task, but we can see what happened in other societies when the hard decision was not made. 

The historical evidence is clear: That to leave these behaviours unchecked, over concerns of this right or that, is to virtually guarantee that they will escalate in frequency and horror. This is neither conjecture nor sensationalism. Last week, there was public clamour in Jamaica for action to deal with the cancer of crime in an admission of how bad the situation is there. 

It could happen here, in fact the historical evidence is that it will – unless we act and act decisively. 

In the course of this recent election campaign, East Ender, the Hon Arden McLean called for “zero tolerance” towards criminal behaviour. Recent events are a warning that failure to heed his words will be at our own peril.

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