LETTER TO THE EDITOR

We should not deal with crime in a dramatic way

Friday,  July 15, 2005

Dear Sir,

We need to deal with crime, yes, but not in a dramatic way; neither in a way that may result in a negative way towards our own people, residents and tourist.

The police and immigration, along with you and I, have to get together to stop this growing tree that is loaded with seeds of crime and violence. Let us not ask for help from an outside source, which only leads to more importation of people who have their own crime to fight in their own country, and don't even know us well enough to understand who is who in our society.

Let us fight this on our own. What we sow is what we reap, better we start now because the wave of crime and violence is getting very steep.

Our previous government opened our gateway to a huge majority of people, claiming it was to justify the humanity cry, (humanity cry meaning the granting of status to so many at once without proper background checks, etc.). Now many of them who got via the humanity cry, have a business licence which gives them the right to import people to work. This is an even worse exploitation. I say, who are some of those people being imported?

Let’s give this a close reality check. We have sold various business licences to numerous persons who have gained status from the humanity cry, now those persons granted status can import people/workers, not for work but to get here for any opportunity to gain lawful or unlawful. This is one area where we will be exploited and crime will seep in steadily. It has already shown us since the gateway was opened to the humanity cry; if we deny this we are surely living a lie.

Our system is a huge part of the blame for being so naïve, allowing so many in without better screening and background checks.

Added to this, after Hurricane Ivan with so many people in and out of the island, we lost some control and our gateway was exploited once again, now we are seeing and feeling the results.

When crime gets to the stage it’s in now we try to find a swift proactive solution, much of it by means of spreading fear. I say replace fear with faith and root out the cause of whatever makes people go to such an extreme to gain.

Joseph (Lebbie) Yates

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