The official or department responsible for criminal prosecution must act on the following incidents if a desperate public is to feel in some small way that there is much more to solving crime than mere talk:
• The images on TV of the cutlass-wielding criminals in Lopinot assault our senses as part of a civilised society in such horrendous fashion that to let this pass would be the greatest travesty of justice.
• Prosecution for the incitement of others to criminal behaviour has precedent in this country and the perpetrator of same at the chutney soca competition must be treated similarly.
• The officers who allegedly abandoned the PM and AG's residences on the grounds of being sick without first informing their immediate supervisor, who would have sought medical attention for these officers and arranged for substitutes (which is the procedure according to one ex-corporal writing to the newspapers), broke the rules while performing an essential service and must be disciplined to the full extent of the law.
All these incidents have one thing in common: No concern for the law, no concern for the consequences of criminal behaviour which has been the root cause of crime in this country. If this is allowed to go unchecked or unpunished, what's next? The public awaits the outcome of each of these with bated breadth for citizens must begin to believe that there will be an end to this lawlessness.
Dr Errol Benjamin
Via e-mail