Re­ports in yes­ter­day's edi­tion jux­ta­posed against each oth­er, of­fer both hope and a deep­en­ing ter­ror for the cit­i­zens from the es­tab­lished and func­tion­ing crim­i­nal ca­bals both in­side and out­side the jails.

While we will nev­er con­done ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings, the po­lice shoot­ing of three of the five ban­dits who robbed at gun­point gro­cery staff in the Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas area on Tues­day, pro­vides a sense of com­fort that our law en­force­ment of­fi­cers are not im­po­tent in the fight against wors­en­ing crime.

On the con­trary, our po­lice re­main rel­e­vant to this in­sid­i­ous and de­bil­i­tat­ing at­tack on our so­ci­ety, one which has the re­al po­ten­tial to con­vert T&T in­to a gang­ster colony out­side of the ac­cept­ed na­tions of the world.

The sub­se­quent cap­ture by the po­lice of two oth­ers sus­pect­ed to have been part of the group that at­tacked the gro­cery fur­ther re­stores our con­fi­dence in our po­lice of­fi­cers who too of­ten, it seems, yield, per­haps in­ad­ver­tent­ly, to a lit­er­al run­away vic­to­ry for the crim­i­nals.

That the episode end­ed with the un­for­tu­nate loss of life of three young men is to be re­gret­ted; if not con­sid­ered the con­se­quence of the three be­ing part of the crim­i­nal en­ter­prise which has been ter­ror­is­ing this coun­try for far too long.

To counter the suc­cess­es in dri­ving back crim­i­nals and mak­ing them pay for their ac­tions, is the fright­en­ing news of crim­i­nal groups with­in the walls of the prison threat­en­ing and in­deed ter­ror­is­ing prison of­fi­cers. Why is this so, be­cause the killing of prison of­fi­cers for re­venge and as a strat­e­gy to re­duce, even elim­i­nate, the ef­fec­tive­ness of the prison sys­tem to pun­ish crim­i­nals for their crimes, will re­move yet an­oth­er counter against crime.

The re­cent at­tack on the homes of three prison of­fi­cers was aimed at weak­en­ing the re­solve of mem­bers of the ser­vice to per­form their du­ties in­side the pe­nal fa­cil­i­ties.

Un­doubt­ed­ly, in ad­di­tion to end­ing the lives of prison of­fi­cers, who have been seen by the crim­i­nals in­side as pur­su­ing their jobs with a com­mit­ment to law and or­der, the killings and threats are con­stant re­minders that if the prison lead­ers and the State do not yield to the in­mates, their lives and those of their fam­i­lies are at se­vere risk.

What’s the so­lu­tion in the in­stance of prison of­fi­cers be­ing threat­ened in­side and out­side of the jails? One re­sponse by the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) has been to ask Gov­ern­ment to al­low of­fi­cers to se­cure FULs so they can pur­chase weapons to pro­tect them­selves and their fam­i­lies while off-du­ty. Spe­cial hous­ing set­tle­ments for of­fi­cers has been an­oth­er re­quest by the POA.

There are mer­its and de­mer­its to such re­quests, in­clud­ing guns in homes falling in­to the hands of the crim­i­nals. The calls for hous­ing prison of­fi­cers in spe­cial quar­ters, if grant­ed, can then be re­peat­ed by po­lice, army and coast guard of­fi­cers with­out any as­sur­ance of pos­i­tive re­sults.

While there con­tin­ue to be ques­tions about the ef­fec­tive­ness of the State of Emer­gency, there is a need for in­creas­ing in­for­ma­tion and in­ves­ti­ga­tion-based surges in­to the crim­i­nal dens now that re­strain­ing laws have been tem­porar­i­ly put aside.

The dis­po­si­tion of of­fi­cers to be alert and ac­tion-ori­ent­ed on the beat - both on foot and in the po­lice ve­hi­cles - needs to be spread around. De­ci­sive ac­tion against crim­i­nals to pro­tect lives and prop­er­ty must be the norm.