Here’s a mere sam­pling from the last few months:

* A promi­nent gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald, who had been re­moved from Cab­i­net twice—and lat­er re­in­stat­ed—over what the Prime Min­is­ter said was a lack of judg­ment, was ar­rest­ed by po­lice last week for ques­tion­ing on cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions.

*In a mass mur­der, sev­en fish­er­men from Car­li Bay were killed—five bod­ies have washed ashore—af­ter their boats were board­ed by at­tack­ers wield­ing guns and cut­lass­es.

* For­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and his as­so­ciate Ger­ald Ramdeen were charged in a kick­back scheme that in­volved al­most $1 bil­lion in le­gal fees paid to pri­vate prac­ti­tion­ers dur­ing Ram­lo­gan’s tenure as at­tor­ney gen­er­al. They have plead­ed not guilty.

* Last month, Vaughn ‘Sand­man’ Mieres, his wife and two oth­er men were killed in an ear­ly morn­ing at­tack at his Las Cuevas home. Mieres was known for con­trol­ling a large swathe of the North Coast for many years. His so-called Mara­cas Bay gang has been in­volved in arms, the drug trade, hu­man traf­fick­ing and sev­er­al mur­ders over the years.

* On Au­gust 4, the Sun­day Guardian pub­lished an in­ves­tiga­tive re­port de­tail­ing how po­lice in­tel­li­gence agents have linked some 40 promi­nent busi­ness­men to ma­jor drug and hu­man traf­fick­ers, gun run­ners, gang lead­ers and mur­der­ers fu­elling the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar crim­i­nal en­ter­pris­es in this coun­try. Many of them have po­lice of­fi­cers at their “beck and call.”

* Last week, peo­ple dri­ving to work in Co­corite saw the dead body of a gun­shot vic­tim on the side of the road, blood still ooz­ing from his head. In years past, mo­torists would stop and try to help. Now they keep dri­ving.

* Al­most every day on so­cial me­dia, we see videos of rob­bers burst­ing in­to homes and busi­ness­es, as­sault­ing in­no­cents. In broad day­light, with­out fear of po­lice, gang mem­bers brazen­ly show off their ar­se­nal. Some neigh­bour­hoods have be­come no-go zones where even the po­lice fear to tread.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley speaks with residents of Big Yard, Carenage, during his visit to the area in July.

ANISTO ALVES

It is no longer a stretch to say that Trinidad and To­ba­go has many ar­eas that re­sem­ble nar­co-states where drug car­tels, not the gov­ern­ment, call the shots. Search on­line for “failed state” and the En­cy­clo­pe­dia Bri­tannica will give you this de­scrip­tion: “Failed state, a state that is un­able to per­form the two fun­da­men­tal func­tions of the sov­er­eign na­tion-state in the mod­ern world sys­tem: it can­not project au­thor­i­ty over its ter­ri­to­ry and peo­ples, and it can­not pro­tect its na­tion­al bound­aries.”

It hurts but it’s true: if we are not there yet, we are but a hair’s breadth away.

Trin­bag­o­ni­ans have been feel­ing it in their dai­ly rou­tines. Home­own­ers and busi­nes­sown­ers have in­stalled the best bur­glarproof­ing and high-tech se­cu­ri­ty equip­ment to thwart in­trud­ers. Many still end up the vic­tims of crime.

Oth­ers have adopt­ed the strictest rou­tines to avoid be­com­ing vic­tims of crime: Don’t go any­where af­ter 6 pm. Take pri­vate taxis not pri­vate hire ve­hi­cles. Hire se­cu­ri­ty guards with guns if you want to spend a week­end in Ma­yaro or oth­er beach spots.

There’s no way to mea­sure the ter­ror that dai­ly strikes the hearts of many Trin­bag­o­ni­ans. A me­dia ex­ec­u­tive re­cent­ly told Guardian Me­dia that she some­times dri­ves her car home in the evening with the fu­el gauge on emp­ty and pray that she could make it back to the gas sta­tion at day­light.

“I have an elec­tric gate. As I wait in my street for it to open, I get vi­sions of masked men run­ning up to my car while I’m in park. As I pull in­side my yard, I sit, en­gine run­ning, doors locked, and hur­ried­ly press the re­mote con­trol to close the gate, ready to beep the hell out of the horn if an at­tack­er runs in­side.”

Re­mem­ber 1984 when we had a crime wave and Pen­guin penned the dit­ty, We Liv­ing in Jail. For those of us who were around back then, that pe­ri­od now looks like the good ole days com­pared to our cur­rent state where the mur­der toll now stands at 327. Some pre­dict that the toll could top the 516 mur­ders record­ed last year. When you add the dai­ly rob­beries, rapes, cut­lass chop­pings and oth­er grue­some vi­o­lence, we are not mere­ly liv­ing in jail, we are liv­ing in hell.

As we say, pres­sure will buss pipe. In those days, many Trin­bag­o­ni­ans fled to Toron­to, New York and South Flori­da, among oth­er places. But mi­grat­ing has be­come much hard­er—even though peo­ple here still de­fy the odds.

For those of us who choose to re­main, what are we to do?

We can start by hold­ing our elect­ed lead­ers to ac­count. And that starts with the Prime Min­is­ter.

Dr Row­ley was elect­ed more than four years ago part­ly on his promise to staunch the soar­ing crime rate. He jus­ti­fi­ably blast­ed the pre­vi­ous UNC-led gov­ern­ment for not do­ing enough to halt the mur­der toll and keep cit­i­zens safe.

Here’s what he said as Op­po­si­tion Leader in ear­ly Jan­u­ary, 2014 af­ter a spate of killings: “I can­not re­call any­time in this coun­try, a blood­bath tak­ing place like this week.”

Three weeks lat­er, he sought to of­fer hope: “Peo­ple said they are be­gin­ning to lose faith that we could ever pull it back. We gave the as­sur­ance we will our put our hands to the tiller and steer the ship of T&T. We in the op­po­si­tion are prepar­ing to un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion and pre­pare re­spons­es.”

Not long af­ter, the PNM man­i­festo de­tailed how Row­ley and his min­is­ters would tack­le crime, from pass­ing new leg­is­la­tion to part­ner­ing with the ju­di­cia­ry.

We ac­knowl­edge that Dr Row­ley didn’t cre­ate the crime prob­lem. But on his watch, crime has soared. (See the ac­com­pa­ny­ing graph­ic of the mur­der toll in the last 10 years.)

There is lit­tle doubt that Dr Row­ley knows the main source of the prob­lem.

Flashback— December 19th 2016, former Police Commissioner Stephen Williams and Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley shake hands after unveiling the plaque at the official handover ceremony of the Besson Street Police Station.

NICOLE DRAYTON

In open­ing the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion on De­cem­ber 19, 2016, Dr Row­ley de­clared: “The one thing we can­not do is al­low imps to be­lieve that they have con­trol of any street or any quar­ter in this coun­try and that the State recog­nis­es that. The po­lice can­not ac­cept that and the gov­ern­ment will not ac­cept it.”

Dur­ing a de­bate on the An­ti-Gang bill on De­cem­ber 6, 2017, he ex­pand­ed on that state­ment: “No­body in this coun­try, no­body, not man, not woman, not child could present an ar­gu­ment that we do not have a se­ri­ous gang cul­ture. We can ap­por­tion blame and rea­sons, that is aca­d­e­m­ic, but al­so no­body could ad­vance an ar­gu­ment that is be­liev­able that we do not—across Trinidad and To­ba­go, we are learn­ing—have a se­ri­ous prob­lem root­ed large­ly in the gang cul­ture.”

There is gen­er­al con­sen­sus that gang mem­bers con­trolled by crime boss­es com­mit much of the vi­o­lent crime and about a third of the mur­ders.

These crime boss­es are al­so known as ‘’com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers.” Re­cent­ly, none oth­er than Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith dis­closed that these com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers were reap­ing gov­ern­ment con­tracts to the tune of mil­lions of dol­lars. In turn, they used tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey to buy high­er ca­pac­i­ty guns to kill their ri­vals and in­no­cent vic­tims.

To say that con­tracts to gangs were not award­ed by the cen­tral gov­ern­ment but by oth­er mu­nic­i­pal agen­cies—con­trolled by the PNM—is a dis­tinc­tion with­out a dif­fer­ence. We all know that all it would take is one call from the Prime Min­is­ter to halt this prac­tice to­mor­row.

What we can­not yet as­sess is Dr Row­ley’s re­solve to make un­pop­u­lar but cru­cial de­ci­sions and work with the po­lice to get to the heart of the crime prob­lem: the crime boss­es and their gangs.

We can­not de­clare that the Prime Min­is­ter has ex­er­cised the best judg­ment in the sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing Min­is­ter Mc­Don­ald. We are bas­ing our own analy­sis on the high stan­dards that then Op­po­si­tion Leader Row­ley es­poused when he re­peat­ed­ly called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­move Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er—who had been sus­pend­ed as FI­FA vice pres­i­dent—in the in­ter­est of good gov­er­nance.

“The last thing the Gov­ern­ment should want to do is send a mes­sage to the mis­guid­ed youth that some peo­ple are above the law or their of­fice is too high for the law.”

Warn­er end­ed up re­sign­ing in 2013 af­ter a Con­ca­caf in­ves­ti­ga­tion ac­cused him of em­bez­zle­ment. He has de­nied the al­le­ga­tion.

Flashback - June 30, 2017, former President Anthony Carmona pose for a picture with Cedric “Burkie” Burke and Marlene Mc Donald after Mc Donald was sworn in as a government minister at the Office of the President.

ANISTO ALVES

Now Dr Row­ley, for a third time, has had to deal with his own min­is­ter fac­ing al­le­ga­tions of im­pro­pri­ety. In March 2016, he fired Mc­Don­ald, then hous­ing min­is­ter, af­ter the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion opened a probe in­to her in­volve­ment with a foun­da­tion that se­cured gov­ern­ment con­tracts.

In June, 2017, the Prime Min­is­ter reap­point­ed her as Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter af­ter the com­mis­sion found no wrong­do­ing. The next month, Dr Row­ley fired Mc­Don­ald a sec­ond time af­ter “com­mu­ni­ty leader” Cedric “Burkie” Burke was her spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guest at her swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny. Less than a year lat­er, Row­ley reap­point­ed Mc­Don­ald as Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter.

Last week, she and her hus­band, Michael Carew, were tak­en in­to po­lice cus­tody af­ter the res­ur­rec­tion of a six-year-old in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged si­phon­ing of over $1 mil­lion from a gov­ern­ment min­istry to three or­gan­i­sa­tions linked to fam­i­ly and friends.

Dr Row­ley told Guardian Me­dia that he would await the out­come of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and did not want to spec­u­late be­cause he was not “an im­pa­tient per­son.”

We en­dorse pa­tience and can­not opine on the guilt or in­no­cence of Min­is­ter Mc­Don­ald. We do won­der if Dr Row­ley, who has al­ways in­sist­ed on trans­paren­cy and railed against the ap­pear­ance of im­pro­pri­ety, is meet­ing his own stan­dard of “good gov­er­nance.”

If he re­fus­es to take de­ci­sive ac­tion, what mes­sage would that send to the “mis­guid­ed youth?”

The Mc­Don­ald is­sue is not Dr Row­ley’s biggest prob­lem. But how he han­dles it will tell the na­tion if he’s se­ri­ous about tak­ing on the biggest prob­lem fac­ing Trin­bag­o­ni­ans: the crime boss­es who dai­ly mur­der, rob and ter­rorise the peo­ple.

Dr Row­ley is not mere­ly the head of gov­ern­ment, but he is al­so chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, which is re­spon­si­ble for com­ing up with strate­gies to pro­tect cit­i­zens.

We have called on Dr Row­ley be­fore to ad­dress the na­tion on the crime sit­u­a­tion. Go on TV and tell us how your gov­ern­ment plans to end this night­mare. Ar­tic­u­late a na­tion­al crime fight­ing strat­e­gy, not just for the po­lice, but for the en­tire coun­try. Be seen as the leader who will ral­ly the coun­try to take on the peo­ple who are killing oth­ers with im­puni­ty.

Peo­ple can­not, and will not, ac­cept that the crime prob­lem is in­tractable. We need as­sur­ance that one day it will be safe again to walk the streets, to go shop­ping, or to go home at night with­out hav­ing to take se­vere de­fen­sive mea­sures.

Des­per­ate times call for des­per­ate mea­sures. And the au­thor­i­ties must do every­thing in their pow­er to de­feat the gangs and lib­er­ate com­mu­ni­ties they now ter­rorise.

Mr Prime Min­is­ter, a crime-weary na­tion waits to hear from you.