The reality is that there are more than a few criminally sick elements of this society.
The religious will describe it as demonic. Psychiatrists and psychologists will say the crime is a pathological disorder.
Whatever the diagnosis, it is frightening in the extreme when gunmen can slaughter two school boys, seemingly without real cause, and a 20 year old man can allegedly rape a 14-month old baby.
Mayor of the capital city, Raymond Tim Kee, was moved to declare Laventille as "hell on earth", but the murders and violent culture are also having an impact in Tunapuna, Tacarigua, Penal, Mayaro.
There is almost no place in T&T which is free of the level of violence that has been apparent for more than a dozen years now and showing no signs of easing.
It is reasonable to conclude that this is not some outbreak of what may be considered "ordinary crime."
It is therefore not an errant individual here and there, but rather criminality feeding deep into the veins of the society.
It is vital to engage such a diagnosis from which to develop the kinds of measures required to fit the problems.
The accumulated violent incidents have quickly rubbed the gloss off the new national security minister with his high army credentials and his analytical approach to crime-fighting.
Minister Dillon is now standing in the place that all of his predecessors have stood over the last more than ten years: seemingly without a clue about what next to do.
If it were not clear before, it must have become quite transparent to all the political regimes, prime ministers and national security ministers over the last four to five regimes that criminality has nothing to do with which party/government in office.
Moreover, that there is no gain to the country to continue the polarisation of crime.
The option is now open for the parties to begin to co-operate meaningfully through passing agreed-to legislation in the Parliament–fixing the rules for the selection and appointment of a Commissioner of Police is one current example before the House.
So too there is absolute need for co-operation between government and opposition for the stern policing and security measures which have to be taken.
Over the years there has little information on the efficacy of the National Security Council and national the intelligence agencies.
To continue forgoing taking such joint action is to ensure that the next government will inherit a problem that will have grown exponentially next time around.
Criminality is being bred in the homes, in the many groups responsible for the socialisation of the young; in the gratuitous violence that is depicted day-in, day out on the glorified visual mass media which exist at the finger tips of almost everyone.
The assemblage of police and army officers after a slate of murders is particularly useless.
The criminals view the situation and settle back to outlast the eventual dispersal of the army/police contingents.
It is fine for Prime Minister Keith Rowley to be critical of those fearful for their lives for not coming forward as witnesses.
The response will be that he can afford to do so behind the security blanket extended to himself and family.
The society has to be made non-threatening for people to freely and openly assist the police. That is the reality.