This may not be the reassuring thing to read right now, but I don’t believe the future is bright for T&T anytime soon. We are a country living in fear of being shot, robbed or kidnapped. But why, all of a sudden, has the crime escalated to such a high level? I believe there is only one answer, Politics. People don’t realise how many Political decisions have ultimately left us in this position.

All these gangs committing these crimes were formed out of the URP, ETP, NHA and other government funded work programs. People were paid for votes, by both of our major political parties. With an 18-18 situation, more money was pumped into these programs. As the elections are over, and a winner was declared, there’s no need for these groups for a couple of years, and funding is being withdrawn. What are these gangs to do?

This is nothing new, these gangs have existed for years. The difference today is that there is a level of organisation in crime we have never seen before. Before, these groups would act alone and could never achieve much more than petty crimes, or be manipulated by drug lords to take hits at other cartels. This time around, we the citizens are the targets. No longer are the majority of murders drug related, citizens are being kidnapped, robbed and shot for cash. That is why hitting home so hard, literally!

So it should be simple to eliminate these organisers right? Well its obvious, atleast to who have a clue, that these organisers have political clout, and are not touched by either of our two political parties. They both had their chances. Yet we keep voting them in, so obviously the majority of trinis prefer T&T this way. This is one of the many reasons we are in a mess today.

You can also blame our school system. What’s good in building more schools when the majority of our existing schools are pathetic. Children go to school and do nothing during the day, besides pushing drugs. Our prison system is in a mess, and criminals tend to get more contacts than be reformed in jail. The Police service is not equipped, trained and structured properly to fight crime, besides the rouge cops. The AIDS problem is not being addressed properly, there’s a good chance many of today’s criminals are HIV positive and have nothing to fear as they already have a death sentence. These are only a few of the many factors, all of which are directly related to political decisions.

But what can we do? We could start by organising peace marches, around the Red House and other key government building to force the Politicians to do something about this. However, I’m not sure how far that can go. Neighbourhood watches have also been suggested, but can you see a couple of residents walking around at night stopping two or three men with guns?

Both the Government and the Opposition are aiming at scoring political points rather than solving fundamental problems in our society. To really solve this problem, we need Politicians that actually care about T&T, but I don’t see that happening as we voted for both as recently as December. To solve this involves drastic action to reclaim our country. It will require people to see beyond Politicians stupid tactics, including handouts and propaganda, from all sectors of society. Is T&T ready to do that?