The homi­cide lev­el is the defin­ing mea­sure used to com­pare the crime rate with­in a coun­try over time, or be­tween coun­tries. Be­tween 1988 and 1999 there was rel­a­tive sta­bil­i­ty as the mur­der rate av­er­aged ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100 per year in that pe­ri­od. The year 2000 marked a sud­den and sharp in­crease in the num­ber of mur­ders, a trend which has con­tin­ued un­abat­ed. The record for the num­ber of mur­ders may well be sur­passed this year as it has al­ready passed 500. This has co­in­cid­ed with an in­crease in the num­ber of home in­va­sions and “tar­get­ed” shoot­ings.

The con­sen­sus has al­ways been that the high mur­der rate is pri­mar­i­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with the drug trade. Avail­able re­search does not sup­port this view. Mur­der is large­ly com­mit­ted by crim­i­nal street gangs and is fu­elled by many fac­tors. One dy­nam­ic is the splin­ter­ing of street gangs pre­vi­ous­ly con­trolled by a re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tion in a turf bat­tle. Al­so re­lat­ed is the com­pe­ti­tion for gov­ern­ment con­tracts fun­nelled to com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers which has led to in­tra-gang bat­tles over these con­tracts. In­creas­ing­ly, vi­o­lence has been as­so­ci­at­ed with the preva­lence of a street cul­ture that sees vi­o­lence as a nec­es­sary “pun­ish­ment” to ad­dress per­ceived acts of dis­re­spect.

The lev­el of vi­o­lence has al­most over­whelmed the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. It seems un­able to ei­ther pre­vent or de­ter vi­o­lence and hold of­fend­ers ac­count­able for their crimes. Two men were mur­dered last week, each with­in prox­im­i­ty to po­lice sta­tions with sur­veil­lance cam­eras, demon­strat­ing that the gangs have noth­ing to fear from the po­lice.  In ref­er­ence to these killings, the head of the In­ter-Agency Task Force said that there are no “safe zones”. Whilst he was speak­ing in the con­text of po­lice sta­tions as a safe zone, his com­ment has wider im­pli­ca­tions. Worse was the as­sas­si­na­tion of Kevin Moses in front of the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion in the pre­vi­ous week, mere min­utes af­ter be­ing re­leased. Who con­tact­ed whom?

There are oth­er rea­sons for deep con­cern. One is the ris­ing num­ber of re­ports be­ing made to the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty against uni­formed of­fi­cers who vi­o­late the law and abuse their au­thor­i­ty as re­port­ed by the chair­man be­fore a Par­lia­men­tary Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee. What is al­so un­ac­cept­able is the slow pace with which mat­ters re­ferred by the PCA to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice are ac­tioned. Is the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in­ca­pable of deal­ing with the dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters with­in her pow­er? To para­phrase for­mer com­mis­sion­er Bernard, what is the val­ue of a bull­dog with teeth that does not know how to bite?

This con­cern ex­tends to oth­er branch­es of the armed ser­vices whose mem­bers are in­creas­ing­ly be­ing de­tained as sus­pects in vi­o­lent crime.

This sit­u­a­tion can­not be al­lowed to con­tin­ue. Nor can we ac­cept the ver­bosi­ty of the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, a Pon­tius Pi­late in mod­ern form who ac­knowl­edges a man ar­rest­ed and con­vict­ed of hu­man traf­fick­ing but dis­ap­pears amidst al­le­ga­tions of po­lice in­volve­ment in the trade.

These events are no­ticed by and alarm the pub­lic. They un­der­mine con­fi­dence in the po­lice, the jus­tice sys­tem, in the po­lit­i­cal par­ties elect­ed to rep­re­sent their in­ter­ests.  The pet­ti­ness dis­played by the main po­lit­i­cal par­ties in fail­ing to com­mu­ni­cate, far less ar­rive at a mean­ing­ful con­sen­sus for ac­tion is an ob­vi­ous dere­lic­tion of du­ty. The dan­ger in this in­fan­tile be­hav­iour is that it does not ad­vance the na­tion­al in­ter­est and runs the risk that both par­ties will be seen as ir­rel­e­vant.