“Crime flourishes when the environment is conducive to people behaving in a certain way.” Sir Dennis Byron, President of the Caribbean Court of Justice.
Sir Dennis made this statement on June 14, 2014 at a symposium held at UWI in honour of the late Dana Saroop Seetahal SC. It was entitled: Re-engineering the Criminal Justice System (CJS). I was one of the speakers at the symposium.
Sadly, two and a half years on and the crime situation, particularly in relation to homicides, is, as the outgoing US Ambassador, John Estrada, said on January 17, spiraling “out of control”. Statistics show that in 2013 there were 408 murders; 403 in 2014; 410 in 2015; 463 in 2016; and at the time of writing, we have already had 30 murders.
While I agree with those who say that there needs to be more accountability in the police service, it is clear that crime prevention, crime reduction, and peacemaking is everybody’s business. And this includes all manner of crimes – including white-collar crime.
Journalist, Caroline C Ravello, said in her column in the Trinidad Guardian on January 18, entitled: ‘Crime levels scary’, that: “criminality among the affluent gets treated with kitty gloves by the very lawmakers/enforcers entrusted with the authority to deal with ‘lower level’ criminals on our behalf, increasing our national mistrust of politicians, parliamentarians, police, et al.” White-collar crime also constitutes violence against society.
Today’s Gospel (Mt 5:1-12) focuses on the Beatitudes. As people of the Beatitudes, let’s commit ourselves to playing our part to build a safer, just and peaceful society; a society in which the rule of law prevails and in which there are conditions that will enable each person to realise his/her potential.
Pope Francis’ said in his Message for the 50th Anniversary of World Day of Peace, on the theme: Non-violence: a style of Politics for Peace: “I ask God to help all of us to cultivate nonviolence in our most personal thoughts and values… Jesus himself offers a ‘manual’ for this strategy of peacemaking in the Sermon on the Mount. The eight Beatitudes (cf. Mt 5:3-10) provide a portrait of the person we could describe as blessed, good and authentic.”
If we all do as the Holy Father asks and practise non-violence, we will speed up the process of building a better T&T.
As I stated in my article on the 2014 symposium: “Most speakers saw the need for each citizen to take responsibility for looking in the mirror and reflecting on ways in which we are contributing to the crime situation; and to ask ourselves what we can do to reduce crime. Discussions focused, inter alia, on the need to:
- champion morals and values in society
- promote more effective governance, accountability and transparency
- deal with corruption/white-collar crime at all levels
- promote community policing and develop a more effective and honest Police Service – getting rid of ‘rogue cops’
- invite persons with specialised skills to enter the Police Service at a senior level
- abolish jury trials, but not without an opportunity for the public to have their say on this matter
- abolish Preliminary Inquiries
- consider the benefits of Plea Bargaining. The AG said that Pamela Elder SC is continuing work on this issue begun by Dana Seetahal SC.
- front-load cases to save court time
- address the relationship between deficits in our education system and crime
- develop a technologically-driven CJS
- introduce robust case management
- address issues relating to the rules of evidence, e.g. hearsay and DNA and Fingerprint Law
- consider sentencing options to promote restoration rather than retribution
- address the economic dimension relating to the CJS, such as poverty which, as Prof Deosaran said, can provide fruitful soil for criminal activity, gangs and gang violence
- protect children from the risk factors related to crime
- institute parenting programmes
- address issues relating to juvenile justice reform
- address the deficiencies in the CJS, such as introducing a National Prosecuting Service to relieve the police from this task so that they can focus on policing, and also tackle the unacceptable conditions in prisons, lengthy delays in processing cases, unreasonable time spent in Remand by some, and huge backlogs in Magistrates’ Courts.”
We pray to the Lord for an end to all acts of violence and hatred and that those who harm others will change their lives/turn their swords into ploughshares.
