Mon­day night's turnout for an­ti-crime talks host­ed by the Op­po­si­tion at the La Joya Com­plex in St Joseph, re­in­forced just how des­per­ate­ly mem­bers of the pub­lic feel about the prob­lem of crime.

This was the first in a se­ries of con­ver­sa­tions the Op­po­si­tion is lead­ing in re­sponse to the fail­ure to get the Gov­ern­ment to meet and dis­cuss the coun­try's in­fu­ri­at­ing­ly un­abat­ing crime sit­u­a­tion.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, in Jan­u­ary 2023, af­ter the coun­try's worst year of crime to date, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had promised to lead na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tions on crime.

Dr Row­ley's as­sur­ance was for an "over­haul and re­dou­bling" of ef­forts against crime, and it had won the sup­port of key busi­ness lead­ers. Those talks nev­er ma­te­ri­alised, nor did the pledge to make a se­ri­ous dent on crime in 2023.

The UNC's de­ci­sion to go this route re­flects an un­der­stand­ing that po­lit­i­cal per­sua­sions aside, the pub­lic sees val­ue in these dis­cus­sions.

Whether viewed through po­lit­i­cal lens or any oth­er, dis­cus­sions on crime now that can ad­vance re­al change are worth hav­ing, and the rec­om­men­da­tions aris­ing from Mon­day's meet­ing have al­ready been en­gag­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic.

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith sug­gest­ed that the or­gan­i­sa­tion of gangs in T&T and the types of weapons at their dis­pos­al are enough to qual­i­fy those car­ry­ing out these se­vere crimes as ter­ror­ists. Mr Grif­fith be­lieves if this is done, it will open the door for more vig­or­ous mil­i­tary sup­port in the fight against crime.

Mr Grif­fith may be right in that the 5000-plus mil­i­tary per­son­nel, most of whom are con­fined to bar­racks, can be bet­ter de­ployed un­der the right leg­isla­tive cov­er to help bol­ster the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice's re­sponse and raise pub­lic con­fi­dence in the ef­forts to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion.

How­ev­er, re­defin­ing heinous crimes as acts of ter­ror­ism would re­quire changes to the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act be­fore any such mat­ter can hold up in a court of law.

Even if the Gov­ern­ment were to fol­low this ad­vice, there is no guar­an­tee it will suc­ceed in mak­ing leg­isla­tive al­ter­ations to the act, as it has strug­gled in the past to get Op­po­si­tion sup­port for key pieces of an­ti-crime leg­is­la­tion, the Bail Amend­ment Act in­clud­ed.

Above all, chang­ing the des­ig­na­tion of these heinous mur­ders to ter­ror­ist acts does noth­ing to con­vince the pub­lic that the po­lice will not on­ly catch the crim­i­nals but build sol­id cas­es to be able to pros­e­cute them.

There is a se­ri­ous prob­lem in this coun­try with turn­ing in­for­ma­tion in­to ev­i­dence, which points to a fail­ure of in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing, al­low­ing gangs to op­er­ate un­hin­dered.

In this light, the views of for­mer As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice John­ny Abra­ham rang loud­ly, as he point­ed to the need for prop­er lead­er­ship with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice and the lack of mo­ti­va­tion in its ab­sence.

Dur­ing his time lead­ing the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, Abra­ham was well-known for his bold warn­ings to crim­i­nals. His per­spec­tive on the way the Ser­vice is be­ing run dur­ing the worst crime chal­lenge in T&T, must not be ig­nored.

De­spite the po­lit­i­cal un­der­pin­nings of these UNC town hall meet­ings, how­ev­er, the Op­po­si­tion must be cred­it­ed for get­ting the an­ti-crime con­ver­sa­tion start­ed.

Our hope is that Gov­ern­ment will fol­low suit and more im­por­tant­ly, that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley will se­ri­ous­ly fa­cil­i­tate the an­ti-crime talks the UNC has been seek­ing with his Gov­ern­ment, since ul­ti­mate­ly it may be those talks that mat­ter most in get­ting things done.