Every cit­i­zen in this coun­try knows that the biggest is­sue fac­ing T&T to­day is crime. While the fo­cus has been on the over 200 mur­ders, there are oth­er crimes that are hap­pen­ing that al­so needs the at­ten­tion of the law en­force­ment agen­cies and more specif­i­cal­ly, the po­lice.

The crime of home in­va­sions has been grow­ing, with reg­u­lar re­ports of masked, armed men en­ter­ing homes, ty­ing up the oc­cu­pants, many of them el­der­ly, and rob­bing them of cash and oth­er valu­ables.

Just yes­ter­day, this news­pa­per re­port­ed a 69-year-old live­stock farmer be­ing hogtied, beat­en with a steel pot, sprayed with in­sec­ti­cide and set on fire by three ban­dits who in­vad­ed his Cu­mu­to Road, Waller­field home de­mand­ing cash and valu­ables.

One of the in­trud­ers was armed with a gun.

This coun­try is un­der siege by the crim­i­nal el­e­ments. What are law-abid­ing cit­i­zens to do when these mon­sters, em­pow­ered by their masks and weapons, trau­ma­tise, rob, harm and some­times even kill cit­i­zens whose homes they en­ter?

Many of these crim­i­nals feel so em­bold­ened now be­cause the coun­try’ de­tec­tion rate is abysmal­ly low. No one is safe, ex­cept for those who live in gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties, or those who own firearms or have 24-hour armed se­cu­ri­ty.

The av­er­age cit­i­zen is open to the whims and fan­cies of the crim­i­nals, who are pre­pared to maim, rape, tor­ture and kill to get what they want.

These crim­i­nals are vi­cious and have no re­morse, nor do they fear be­ing caught be­cause they know they won’t be. Ban­dits at­tack fam­i­lies and es­cape on foot, mov­ing on to an­oth­er home to com­mit an­oth­er crime, while the po­lice dil­ly dal­ly, many times tak­ing for­ev­er to re­spond. When you call you get the age-old re­sponse of no ve­hi­cle, yet a dri­ve on the high­way and you re­alise the po­lice fleet has been bol­stered with new ve­hi­cles. We hope they are be­ing used in the fight against crime and not for the po­lice to con­duct their pri­vate busi­ness as they have done in the past.

Does the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter even care that the pop­u­la­tion is un­der siege? Un­less he is at an of­fi­cial func­tion read­ing from a pre­pared speech, he seems more in­tent on fo­cus­ing his at­ten­tion on the Op­po­si­tion than deal­ing with the burn­ing is­sue of crime.

It is dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand how Min­is­ter Hinds’ head could be so buried in the sand that he does not un­der­stand just how trau­ma­tised and scared the pop­u­la­tion is by crime. The crim­i­nal el­e­ment re­spects no one. Min­is­ter Hinds, as a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer, knows that. Or maybe he does not un­der­stand or cares to un­der­stand.

The fact is that as Min­is­ter, it is his job, con­trary to what he be­lieves, to keep the pop­u­la­tion safe. He can’t get a free pass on crime, while blam­ing every­one else for the out of con­trol sit­u­a­tion that con­tin­ues to mush­room un­der his watch.

Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cobs must al­so open his eyes to the re­al­i­ty. There are now too many re­ports of law en­force­ment per­son­nel, in­clud­ing the po­lice, in­volved in crime. Who is guard­ing the guards, or are they just be­ing al­lowed to get away with mur­der?

T&T is at a crit­i­cal point and it is time for the au­thor­i­ties to step up and take charge. Run­away crime can­not be al­lowed to con­tin­ue.