OUR ACTING COMMISSIONER OF POLICE reported to the country on Thursday last on the crime situation and the increasing numbers of illegal firearms on the streets, but already his comments about how guns may be coming into this country has ruffled the feathers of some Customs Department officers.
The facts are that guns are making their way into the country. The commissioner reported: “Our intelligence suggests that the guns are coming through legitimate points of entry. They are either assisted by officials or not detected by them at our borders.” Clearly, the public is entitled to hear the views of the acting commissioner, and to draw such conclusions as they think fit.
Our view is that whatever the situation, the public is entitled to know since it is in the public interest that we are all operating this democracy, and while we do not think that the commissioner was indicting the entire body of public officers whose duty it is to safeguard our borders, he has a duty to discreetly inform the public of the results of the intelligence available to him as this country’s top police officer. No less is his duty.
What the public now hopes is that the Royal Barbados Police Force, assisted by other public agencies, will have already put enhanced detection techniques in place to uncover and discover the “port holes” through which these illegal weapons are entering our shores. These port holes must be closed.
We remain confident that the large majority of Barbadians of all ages are law- abiding and that the police authorities can rely on wide public support to rid the island of this emerging scourge.
There has also been some adverse comment about the publication of photos of young accused on their way in and out of our courts. The suggestion is that such stories and photos should not make the front pages since they glamorise crime.
Once again, the critical issue is the right of the society generally to know what is going on right under their noses. It is the oxygen of publicity that has alerted the public to this new attitude by some towards crime. Time was when mere accusations of crime brought down the opprobrium of the entire society on the head of the alleged miscreant. Not so any longer, and we feel that this new attitude must be made known to the public, so that it can be rightfully frowned upon.
A society is not governed by formal law alone. Wholesome social attitudes properly reinforced can often have a greater impact than anything else. The sight of mothers, girlfriends and young children under five years of age looking on and hailing these young men as if they are heroes is a sign of failure in the past and immense worry for the future.
That their comments are often colourfully abusive of the police in particular and authorities in general, sharpens the task of social and other agencies seeking to enhance the public good.
The challenge thrown up by the unholy matrix of illegal guns, drugs and gang-related murders by young men against their rivals for turf in nefarious activities is not a problem that developed overnight; nor will it evaporate in a moment. But it is a worrisome trend which we must take seriously, while giving thought and action to its arrest and eradication.
