Vi­o­lence is one of those glob­al pub­lic health prob­lems that lives with us and of­ten we find our­selves ad­just­ing our lives to live with it as well. It is a top­ic that dis­tress­es me every time I at­tempt a com­men­tary and that may be part of my own trau­ma from the sub­ject.

There are ex­perts for ar­eas such as vi­o­lence and crime. I am not among them. Over the years, I have in­ter­ro­gat­ed the trau­ma our na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty ex­pe­ri­ences and have found no so­lace in any plan, pro­gramme or project by any gov­ern­ment in my life­time. I al­ways come out on the side of anx­i­ety and frus­tra­tion.

But as a cit­i­zen of a coun­try ranked sev­enth in the world at­las for vi­o­lent death (rate per 100,000; age stan­dard­ised) on­ly be­hind El Sal­vador, Hon­duras, Venezuela, Ja­maica, Lesotho, and Be­lize (https://www.worldlife­ex­pectan­cy.com/), I am cer­tain vi­o­lence and crime is part of the com­mu­ni­ty and com­mon trau­ma we all ex­pe­ri­ence.

Fear is a chron­ic stress con­di­tion here un­less you are blessed with some un­usu­al ca­pac­i­ty to be fear­less or to re­main unim­pact­ed. Con­sid­er how we live, how we con­stant­ly, with­out think­ing too deeply, work to or­gan­ise our lives lim­it­ing our move­ments, mis­trust­ing peo­ple on our streets, and reg­u­lar­ly con­sid­er­ing what is the next tragedy to come or how it will im­pact us.

Bor­row­ing this list from a study, some of the ma­jor forms of vi­o­lence, homi­cide, as­sault, as­sault with a weapon, do­mes­tic as­sault, sex­u­al as­sault, sex­u­al as­sault on a child, sex traf­fick­ing, child abuse and ne­glect, and kid­nap­ping (Rei­dy et al, 2022) are all is­sues which per­me­ate our en­vi­ron­ment.

Imag­ine be­ing born in­to a cul­ture in which you are con­stant­ly in touch with crim­i­nal­i­ty and vi­o­lence even if in­di­rect­ly. What do you en­vis­age the com­mu­ni­ty will pro­duce if at­tempts at in­ter­ven­tion are main­ly to lim­it peo­ple’s move­ment rather than re­new their minds or pro­mote im­proved be­hav­iour?

A search of our Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice records shows re­port­ed fig­ures for crime rates (2015–2024) and as well num­bers of mur­der by po­lice di­vi­sion for the same pe­ri­od. I have not found any crit­i­cal analy­sis but look­ing at raw num­bers know­ing these are on­ly “re­port­ed fig­ures”, still caus­es a con­strict­ing of the chest (cso.gov.tt/sub­jects/pop­u­la­tion-and-vi­tal-sta­tis­tics/crime-sta­tis­tics).

The fact is that my body has a record and does its own analy­sis, quite apart from me. It is an ac­cu­rate ac­count, com­men­su­rate with my vi­o­lence ex­po­sure, crime in­for­ma­tion, and per­son­al trau­mat­ic crim­i­nal ex­pe­ri­ences. Like every oth­er as­pect of my life and well-be­ing, the so­cial de­ter­mi­nants of health with­in which I was born, grow, live, work, and play in­clude the con­di­tions of crime and vi­o­lence which in­flu­ence my health out­comes.

The US Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) says, “Liv­ing in a com­mu­ni­ty ex­pe­ri­enc­ing vi­o­lence is al­so as­so­ci­at­ed with in­creased risk of de­vel­op­ing chron­ic dis­eases. Con­cerns about vi­o­lence may pre­vent some peo­ple from en­gag­ing in healthy be­hav­iours, such as walk­ing, bi­cy­cling, us­ing parks, and ac­cess­ing healthy food.”

And I can re­late to this. Some­times I am walk­ing, armed, and won­der­ing if there is any val­ue to ex­er­cis­ing in a state of hy­per­vig­i­lance.

Vi­o­lence and crime pro­duce noth­ing good in me or my com­mu­ni­ty. Re­searchers agree that over time the sus­tained vig­i­lance af­fects our emo­tion­al well-be­ing, phys­i­cal health, our re­la­tion­ships, and the ca­pac­i­ty to feel safe in one’s own house, street, vil­lage, and com­mu­ni­ty.

“High crime sta­tis­tics pro­found­ly af­fect na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ties by erod­ing pub­lic trust, dam­ag­ing eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty, and de­grad­ing the over­all qual­i­ty of life. The im­pacts stretch be­yond di­rect vic­tims, re­shap­ing how so­ci­ety func­tions and in­ter­acts,” says the CDC.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly for us as many oth­er so­ci­eties glob­al­ly young peo­ple are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly im­pact­ed. Then they grow in­to adults who run the world, car­ry­ing trau­ma from ear­ly life in­to adult­hood car­ry­ing the psy­cho­log­i­cal and so­cial in­juries in­to every sphere and the con­se­quences be­come ev­i­dent. And we age in their world.

“Youth and young adults can be vic­tims, per­pe­tra­tors, or wit­ness­es of vi­o­lence. Peo­ple with mul­ti­ple ad­verse child­hood ex­pe­ri­ences (ACEs), in­clud­ing ex­po­sure to vi­o­lence, are more like­ly to have phys­i­cal and men­tal health con­di­tions and be­hav­iour­al dif­fi­cul­ties (cdc.gov/com­mu­ni­ty-vi­o­lence/about).

In the pub­li­ca­tion From Pain to Pow­er: Crime Vic­tims Take Ac­tion (1988) the au­thor writes, “Long af­ter the phys­i­cal wounds have healed, many crime vic­tims con­tin­ue to feel over­whelmed by the psy­chic pain of loss, pow­er­less­ness, low self-es­teem, iso­la­tion, fear, rage-feel­ings that of­ten are shared by their fam­i­ly and friends, as well as by the ex­tend­ed com­mu­ni­ty” (US Dept of Jus­tice, Of­fice of Jus­tice Pro­gram, 1998).

These are the same even for those in­di­rect­ly im­pact­ed.

From my learn­ing, pre­vent­ing vi­o­lence and crime re­quires an all-of-so­ci­ety ap­proach. Un­til every­one is play­ing a role in a plan with aus­tere lead­er­ship, we will con­tin­ue to live in height­ened crim­i­nal­i­ty and vi­o­lence. We will con­tin­ue to be a so­ci­ety with high lev­els of chron­ic ill­ness­es, and low lev­els of trust.