The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune,

Re: PM Gets Tough On His Legacy – January 3, 2014

These days there are many seemingly fashionable aspects to any discussion of crime. Some of them are as follows:

It is fashionable pseudo-intellectually to blame others such as society, courts, politics, poverty, video games, parents, teachers, churches and phase of the moon, etc, and it is distinctly less fashionable to unashamedly blame the perpetrators themselves.

Nowadays, criminals don’t even seem to do wrong or evil anymore, they just make “bad choices”.

Also, it’s fashionable to form committees to discuss causes of crime and rehabilitation, etc.

That’s a laudable approach, but most of us would be grateful simply to get the dysgenic psychopaths comfortably locked away off the streets and worry about such niceties as rehabilitation later.

If a fire breaks out, that is hardly the time to sit around and discuss its cause or repairs, or even prevention. The first thing one needs to do is take immediate and decisive action to extinguish the fire, by any reasonable means.

The PM has reportedly said “reducing the fear of crime is a top priority” and it’s extremely fashionable to talk about the “fear” of crime. However, this sounds condescending and is somewhat akin to talking about an imaginary monster under the bed that a child may be in fear of. But unfortunately, our crime monster is all too real. If someone is not fearful of it, either they are not of this planet, or I would like a case of whatever they’re smoking. However, if it makes one feel suitably all-knowing and paternalistic (in a political sense) to talk about reducing the “fear” of crime, one way to do it, of course, is to reduce crime itself! If nothing else, that means increasing old-fashioned police foot patrols.

And not just photogenic RBPF walkabouts in downtown Nassau between nine and five weekdays when the weather is nice, or when the cruise ships are in port. I’m talking about radio-equipped F-O-O-T patrols rotating unpredictably all over this little island (even when sports or the soaps are on TV). Let’s hope this too becomes a fashionable “key measure”!

KEN W KNOWLES MD

Nassau,

January 6, 2014.