It is to my dis­may that our beau­ti­ful land of Trinidad and To­ba­go does not seem to be get­ting any bet­ter where crime is con­cerned. There are some peo­ple who feel that it is right to walk in­to an­oth­er's prop­er­ty and take what­ev­er they want, even take an­oth­er per­son's life. Have they no con­science? I refuse to let this in­tim­i­date me.

We all have a part to play in solv­ing crimes. Too many re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zens are tak­ing steps to pro­tect them­selves–cam­eras, alarms, you name it. What about the au­thor­i­ties? What are they do­ing?

In spite of all that has hap­pened and a num­ber of rob­beries in Cu­mu­to, there is still no po­lice pa­trol at nights. We are still liv­ing in an age where the po­lice have the au­dac­i­ty to say that they have no ve­hi­cles. We might as well put up a big sign that says "Wel­come to Trinidad and To­ba­go, feel free to rob cit­i­zens."

It is ap­par­ent that the thieves them­selves have no re­spect for the po­lice if they can be so brave. Are we on our own in this coun­try when comes to crime? A po­lice re­sponse three hours af­ter a re­port is un­ac­cept­able. It is dis­gust­ing and shame­ful! Tax mon­ey should not be wast­ed on this kind of ser­vice. Seats do not need to be warmed by con­tin­u­ous sit­ting and idling.

There are al­ways "talks" about de­vel­op­ing, but de­vel­oped coun­tries care. The men­tal­i­ty and cul­ture is dif­fer­ent. In Trinidad it's al­ways a laid-back at­ti­tude of "doh care damn" and cor­rup­tion. It is so em­bar­rass­ing to see that the US em­bassy ad­vis­es its cit­i­zens that Trinidad and To­ba­go is still a coun­try with sig­nif­i­cant crime. When will it end? We want back the days when doors could have been left opened and no one would at­tempt to rob any­one.

Nu­tan Nath,

Cu­mu­to