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THE CRUSHING OF INNOCENCE

Sep 13, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

When Seema Mangar left work last Friday afternoon, she must have looked forward to going home and to enjoying the weekend. Little could she have imagined the fate that befell her as she waited at a bus stop for transportation to go home.
She had just finished a hard weeks work and left her workplace in the company of others. As this working class girl was about to board a mini bus to take her home, her cell phone was snatched from her.
She did perhaps what may feel was stupid- she went after the person to try to recover what was hers. The thief got into a car and drove over her. Within twenty four hours she succumbed to her injuries at a private hospital.
This is sad case, and shows the dangers that exists out there for everyone. But this danger is only be caused by a tiny fraction of our society.
The total number of criminals in our society is very small. Yet every day, the inflict terrible pain and losses in our society and it is time that we begin to ask why should such an infinitesimal of criminally-minded criminals cause so much problems for our country.
It is not as if Guyana is teeming with criminals.  It is only less than one per cent of our population that are believed to be engaged in criminal activity. The other 99% are all law abiding citizens who do not try to mug, otherwise rob, or injure others. Yet, the vast majority of Guyanese have to take precautions that would otherwise be unnecessary.
They have to live like prisoners in their homes, grilling their houses and locking their gates at night. They have to individually spend thousands of dollars each month on various security systems from car alarms to surveillance cameras, to security guards. One the largest sectors in Guyana today is the security system, both the public and the private.
There are thousands of persons employed as private guards. Millions of dollars of security-related gadgets are sold month in Guyana and billions  are spent to maintain the Guyana Police Force. We probably are spending the highest per capita on fighting criminal activity.
And yet in the middle of the city, a shard working girl with everything to live for, is cut down because someone wanted to have her cell phone. For that cell phone, the thief was prepared to run over this young lady.
There are many who will contend that the girl acted stupidly by going after the man who had snatched her phone. She may have done the wrong thing in placing herself in front of the vehicle. The phone was never going to worth her life, but sometimes when people work hard for what they have, they feel that they simply cannot allow a bully to come an take it away.
This girl was brave enough to try to retrieve her property. It is not something that would be advised since as we have seen she lost her life in the process but she decided that she was not going to allow someone to simply dispossess her of her property.
This was a young woman that had just started her career. She was prepared to work to build a life for herself. Then someone who was not prepared to work decided that what the girl had must be his and so be mugged her and stole her phone and then when she tried to go after him, he ran over her with a car.
This society has to take a tans against those persons who are not prepared to work for what they want but want to steal from others. It is not many persons in our country who go around doing these terrible deeds. It is a very minuscule number of individuals but our jails are too small to house this number.
It is time we begin to stop excusing these criminals with all manner of justifications about poverty and social circumstances creating criminals.
Most of the older citizens of this country were not born with gold spoons in their mouths. They did not take to crime. They did not go around stealing from others and yet most of them have over time been able to enjoy a decent life.
There can be no excuse for stealing from others. No excuse at all. What that girl did in going after her assailant may have cost her life, but she deserved to have gone home unmolested and with all her possessions intact. She deserved to live.
But the saddest part is that despite all the billions that are spent on security in Guyana, her killer or killers have a good chance of avoiding justice.

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