The pub­lic re­sponse to crime waves has been con­sis­tent, re­gard­less of which po­lit­i­cal par­ty has been the Gov­ern­ment. It is emo­tive, char­ac­terised by fear, anger, out­rage, im­pa­tience and help­less­ness trans­lat­ed in­to calls for im­me­di­ate ac­tion and re­sults or a sav­iour to res­cue the coun­try from the scourge of crime. No sav­iour has emerged, though a few have at­tempt­ed to play the role of prophets.

Politi­cians have al­so been con­sis­tent. The tech­niques used have been to shift blame and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the so­ci­ety, agen­cies and in­sti­tu­tions which com­prise the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, the me­dia and oth­er po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents. There have been crime plans, the pur­chase of mil­i­tary and tech­no­log­i­cal as­sets, joint pa­trols, a state of emer­gency, and catchi­ly named so­cial pro­grammes, none of which have worked. New laws have al­so been in­tro­duced, new agen­cies formed, and for­eign as­sis­tance ob­tained in ad­di­tion to the usu­al rhetoric and re­crim­i­na­tion. There have been task force re­ports, lo­cal and re­gion­al talk shops and gun talk. How­ev­er, ac­cep­tance of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty has been lim­it­ed.

The crim­i­nal el­e­ments, though they lack the re­sources of the State (man­pow­er, equip­ment, tech­nol­o­gy, le­gal au­thor­i­ty and mon­ey) and pub­lic sup­port, have man­aged to thrive and grow. Though their num­bers are said to be lim­it­ed, their out­reach and abil­i­ty to pen­e­trate, if not in­fil­trate, pub­lic and law en­force­ment agen­cies can­not be de­nied.

Crime did not es­ca­late overnight. There­fore, notwith­stand­ing the pub­lic in­dig­na­tion and re­crim­i­na­tion, it can­not be solved im­me­di­ate­ly, nor with one or two emer­gency mea­sures. There is no quick fix. Miss­ing is a com­pre­hen­sive, all-of-gov­ern­ment ap­proach that is non-par­ti­san and fo­cused on mea­sur­able re­sults, sec­tor by sec­tor, in­sti­tu­tion by in­sti­tu­tion. The rec­om­men­da­tions of the Chief Jus­tice, the DPP, and the var­i­ous Com­mis­sions of En­quiry re­ports lie unim­ple­ment­ed. Are these be­ing ad­dressed?

What­ev­er is pre­vent­ing a com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach to ad­dress­ing the weak­ness­es of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem must be iden­ti­fied and cor­rect­ed. That means en­sur­ing that the en­tire sys­tem of jus­tice must be stream­lined or re­formed to make it fit for pur­pose. The so­cial is­sues must al­so be ad­dressed. The po­lit­i­cal one-up­man­ship dis­played by both po­lit­i­cal par­ties in deal­ing with the crime sit­u­a­tion threat­ens to make both po­lit­i­cal par­ties ir­rel­e­vant. Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans from both sides walk the con­stituen­cies and know the com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers. They are not ig­no­rant of the facts on the ground.

The Prime Min­is­ter right­ly chose to avoid a state of emer­gency as an emer­gency mea­sure. How­ev­er, the an­nounce­ment of $100 mil­lion to fund the De­fence Force to act in com­mu­ni­ties af­fect­ed by crime is a knee-jerk re­sponse to pub­lic pres­sure. Army per­son­nel are not po­lice and do not have the le­gal au­thor­i­ty to make the in­ter­ven­tions an­nounced by the Prime Min­is­ter—in­ter­ven­tions for which they have nei­ther the ca­pac­i­ty nor train­ing. The an­nounce­ment is an ab­sur­di­ty born of po­lit­i­cal des­per­a­tion.

The lat­est wave of mur­ders co­in­cides with des­per­ate pleas from the Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion, Am­cham and oth­er voic­es in the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to ad­dress a pro­tec­tion rack­et which is wide­spread and gang-re­lat­ed. Re­cruit­ing more po­lice or army per­son­nel, or buy­ing new equip­ment will not give even a tem­po­rary respite. Nor will a new com­mis­sion­er, prime min­is­ter or gov­ern­ment save us. The in­stru­ments to deal with crime rests on com­mu­ni­ty ac­tion and in the in­sti­tu­tions tasked with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for pre­ven­tion, de­tec­tion and con­vic­tion. It is ur­gent and crit­i­cal that these in­sti­tu­tions be fixed and made fit for pur­pose.