Crime is once more on the rise

Apr 19, 2011 Editorial

There has been a spate of robberies in recent times and more often than not, the victims are shot. There was the West Demerara businessman who died with a bullet in his head, the Toshao in Linden who nursed a gunshot wound to his abdomen and at least three others in the past week. There was the 77-year-old man who happened to be wearing a chain that depicted his religion. He was shot dead by the people who wanted his chain even as the senior citizen was supervising some works in East La Penitence.
There are the bandits who have been making East Canje their hunting ground and attacking just about every household in quest of cash and jewellery. In a recent case they got nothing but they damaged the home, chopping out the window and smashing doors.
Many of those attacked have been visiting Guyanese, some coming home after more than two decades. And in almost every case these people have been pounced on as soon as they disembark their vehicles when they would have reached their destination.
Sometimes the victims believe that they are trailed from the airport and this may very well be the case. Perhaps they have lookouts at the airport who telephone ahead to alert the bandits to the car.
Toward the end of last year, Police Commissioner Henry Green, who was fulsome in his praise of his ranks for forcing crime downward, boasted that they had seized so many weapons that there was now a shortage of guns and that criminals were being made to borrow or rent guns.
We would have warned against complacent behaviour at this announcement but the society is such that anything that appears to run against the grain of officialdom is seen as anti-government, anti-national and a case of negative thinking.
Indeed the police had seized many weapons within recent times, nearly 100 per year. At such a rate of seizure the police would have been fooled into believing that they were making some headway. But the truth is that Guyana with its open borders and the neighbouring countries with so many guns, merely cause those guns seized to be replaced.
There are those who now believe that for every weapon seized the criminals put two more on the market. And undoubtedly they procure them cheaply. Just last week the police stopped a car that had been involved in a shooting at which the police were at the receiving end. They managed to arrest the driver and they found a nine millimeter pistol and fifteen live rounds.
In another case they collected a firearm dropped by a fleeing bandit but people who know the bandit said that he has another.
Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee shouted from the roof tops that his government has passed draconian legislation to help deal with the illegal possession of firearm. From the look of things, it might have been better to use the same old legislation because the situation seems to have worsened.
Gunmen are bailed and go about conducting other gun crimes. The nation is sick of hearing about an individual who has several matters before the courts. The gunmen are held and released on bail because the prisons are bursting at the seams. The bottom line is that there is nothing to prevent growing crime.
It has not escaped notice that for this year, so far, 80 police ranks have been prosecuted for their involvement in criminal acts. The police are supposed to protect the society but it would seem that some of them enter the force to get possession of the gun and to hide behind their uniforms.
How the society has changed. People are running scared once more and the fact that some in authority are reportedly not clean leaves a lot to be desired. One can only imagine people reacting to the report that the Minister of Home Affairs actually encouraged a criminal act to the point that a man and his family had to seek asylum in Canada.
And worse, the criminals these days are largely illiterate and their numbers are growing. This, then, may be the reason for what is happening now. These men cannot gain employment and since they want money they are going to seek what they consider the easiest way. And younger men see them as role models even as the society seems helpless to reverse the trend.

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