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A frightening crime situation

May 26, 2011 Editorial

Crime is insidious. It seems that at every turn there is some criminal waiting to pounce on a hapless victim. People speak of walking home and of passing a group of men. Then soon after, one or more of the group members would attack and relieve them of whatever they may possess.
For example, a young reporter happened to be walking along High Street, having completed what he thought was a hard day’s work. No sooner had he passed what used to be the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation than a man attacked him. Fortunately, the reporter could have defended himself and he managed to hold on to his attacker.
A visiting overseas-based Guyanese happened to be supervising a cleaning exercise outside a property he owned at East La Penitence. He was 70. Two men who happened to be riding by attacked him. They were not content to relieve him of whatever he had in his possession; they also shot and killed him.
Women step off minibuses in certain areas to head home at the end of the day. People they see every day suddenly become predators. These people, particularly young men little more than boys, would snatch their handbags and disappear.
We are now aware that small gangs have warded off the city, each selecting a particular area within which to operate. They would spend the day on bicycles riding around looking for prey. No one is safe, not even schoolchildren. There are reports of schoolchildren either heading to or leaving school with their cellular phones. The predators would simply pounce on them, often at knifepoint.
A few days ago a lone gunman attacked a roadside business place operated on the Railway Embankment at Better Hope. The gunman walked into the business place some time around two in the morning. He disregarded the customers in the place and calmly shot and killed the businessman who was his target.
And this is only one case. There are numerous others, particularly in Berbice where thieves and bandits roam almost with impunity. Gone are the days when only the rich were targeted. Everyone is now a potential target and it is not unusual to expect people to be killed for money that can barely buy a pair of shoes.
A few hours ago, a doctor reportedly went to his home and found his wife in a pool of blood. She lived in a relatively upscale neighbourhood, one in which security guards proliferate. No one saw anything suspicious and one is left to wonder at the level of security for which one pays good money.
These things add up to create a frightening picture of the society in which we live. It seems as though there is a breakdown in law and order. Nearly a decade ago, a crime wave, the likes of which had never been experienced in this country, rocked Guyana. Gunmen came from every quarter and holed out in Buxton.
Policemen were scared to be recognized as law enforcers so they changed their clothes when they left for home or when they were heading to work. The army had to come out but it took six years for the gunmen to be contained.
There are many reasons being offered for the current crime situation. Social scientists say that it is not necessarily due to poverty. They say that there are poor people all over the world and many do not resort to crime.
Some feel that parenting has collapsed and this has spawned crime to the extent that some parents even encourage criminal behaviour. How can one explain a son seeking refuge from a gunman behind his mother and the woman pushing him away, then telling whoever may listen that she could not say why her son was attacked.
Here is a case of studied acceptance of the fate of her child. Surely, she knew that he was into criminal activity and she knew the adage that he who lives by the sword would die by the sword.
The late President Desmond Hoyte once said that criminals thrive in Guyana because they are not caught. The police, in our view, try their best but they are hamstrung by their numbers and the tools with which they have to work. Some are further hampered by their administrators because of political considerations.
Crime would continue to be insidious unless there are serious changes in the education system, in the social conditions that fashion parents and in the way the hierarchy of the police force operates.

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