The Tribune

By Malcom Strachan

PEOPLE are often quick to take credit, but quicker still to shift blame elsewhere. Take our recent crime spike, for example.

Back at the end of last year, Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander was talking about how “we are still down” on murders despite missing his target of fewer than 100 murders for the second year running.

As for his solution, it was to “go back to the table and see where we could strategise and do some things differently”. That suggests of course that whatever the plan was to get the number below 100, it was not working.

Fast forward to the bloody start of this year with murders in double digits already and what do we see?

Well, the Commissioner has hit out at the bail system, saying that there was something “definitely wrong” in people being released on bail “within two or three months” and seemingly suggesting that people should be locked up in prison while awaiting trial for two or three years before they get bail.

The Chief Justice at the opening of the legal year rightly pushed back on that idea, noting that constitutional rights don’t end the moment you are charged with a crime.

Notably, though, the Commissioner is not looking close to home for the solution – but blaming the judicial system. He is not talking there about how to focus saturation patrols or building community links to reduce crime, he’s saying hey, it’s the fault of that system over there.

That system, the judicial one, has not changed in the past two weeks – so the spike in murders is nothing to do with anything going on in that regard. The Commissioner is dealing with the same landscape as when he was talking about murders being down in number just a couple of weeks ago.

There was also some criticism levelled at the police force by the chairman of the Bahamas National Neighbourhood Watch Council, Keno Wong, who said that there had been a breakdown in relations between the force and the organisation.

What was the Commissioner’s reaction to that? Did he pledge to fix matters? Did he dash to rebuild those relations? Did he cement the importance of Neighbourhood Watch in tackling crime?

No, he said he was disappointed in Mr Wong, saying: “I don’t know how the president got to this. This isn’t the time for that. This is a time to come together, and if it’s any concern, my door is always open. He should reach out.”

Mr Wong had pointed out that liaison officers had been pulled out of communities, adding “the communities kind of went back on its own and so it’s a struggle now”. He added: “Who do you call? If you call this station, there’s always an issue. If you call 919, they take down the information, and sometimes no one shows up.”

He talked of how it had been helpful to have officers in communities because there was direct contact, “and we saw the dividends of them getting involved and sending mobile patrols to come in very quickly, or someone from the station may have come in quickly … that has stopped”.

Meanwhile, National Security Minister Wayne Munroe is also getting in on shifting the blame, saying it is up to the public.

He said that criminals are “around you, they have no regard for anybody else’s life and you have a responsibility, you have a personal responsibility, to make them known to the police. You can’t just say it has nothing to do with you”.

He also spoke out about guns, saying they only have one purpose, “and that is to kill”. An interesting perspective, considering he is the same man who has previously said he sees no reason why law-abiding citizens should not be approved to have gun licences.

He did indicate that there would be a task force that the Chief Justice has agreed to, and that there will be some pressure to reduce bail in cases of “somebody’s own safety or for the safety of the public. We have seen that when people come to kill these fellas, other people may be injured”.

There is an obvious missing link in that, however, in that the would-be killers are still on the streets. Will they stop killing just because some of their targets are still behind bars, or will they just find different targets?

Prevention by locking up everyone they have a disagreement with is going to see some very full jails.

As I write this, I await the speech by Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis on the issue of crime – so I do not know what personal actions he will be talking about.

So my recommendation to readers is this – go back through his speech and count the things that are actual actions that he or his administration will take.

Don’t get caught up in the thoughts and prayers, which will be on show tonight in Rawson Square as part of a National Day of Prayer. We can always use the prayers, but we need more than that.

What will be the actual actions? And what are the things he says where the blame is being pushed somewhere else?

The public can help, of course, but it’s not the public’s job. The public does not set policy or write laws or carry out patrols. Saying it’s up to the public is tantamount to washing your hands and saying it’s not my job. So watch out for that.

Count the actual concrete proposals in the speech. Perhaps there will be plenty. Perhaps there will be few. And ask yourself if this will make a difference, or is this just giving a speech because we’ve had a rush of murders and is the administration hoping that spike will fade soon.

Make no mistake, though. If we keep having 100+ murders each year through this administration, crime is very much going to be an issue at the next election. And hopefully given a higher priority by both sides than last time around.

With the bodies piling up on the streets, however, we cannot afford to wait.