Today we recall that there was once a House Select Committee on Crime and that it was chaired by the Hon. Dr. Bernard J. Nottage.

We also recall that the said Committee on Crime did outline its strategies and goals in examining crime in the country.
The committee was headed by Dr. Bernard Nottage, MP for Bain and Grants Town.

Of current significance is the fact that, Dr. Bernard J. Nottage is today, this nation’s Minister of National Security.
As Dr. Nottage insisted all those years ago: – “… One of the very important tasks we have set for ourselves is to conduct a review of the reports of the various commissions and committees which have been appointed by successive governments of The Bahamas over the years as they have grappled with this problem…”

Note also that:- “…The committee was also mandated to investigate to what extent social conditions have impacted levels of crime, to evaluate the impact if any that the conclusions and recommendations of commissions and committees appointed by governments have had on crime, and to make recommendations with respect to solutions…”

We do most sincerely believe that extant social conditions [as driven by both demographics and economics] do play a very large part in the genesis of crime; in its glorification and in the extent to which criminals are being routinely cloaked and coddled in this or that community gone wild – spaces and places where so very many people do their thing with nary a fear of being brought to justice.

In turn this leads to a situation where try as they might to get a handle on street-level crime and thug-driven mayhem, the police find themselves harried and quite likely perplexed by what seems a never-ending wave of this kind of social threat.
In this regard, we need only cite the fact that when dark falls, the troubles escalate on this island’s mean streets.

Here we reference armed robberies, rapes; murders, pillage and other species of smash and grab offences against property.
And so, today we repeat: – An escalating crime rate is but one other manifestation of what can and will happen when a society’s moral core has been infested with evil as is to be expected in a land where so very many people now worship things.
And so too, do we suggest that crime can and should be dealt with in terms of what it really is: a canker that has become so deeply rooted that its eradication requires radical intervention not only by the state but also by the state, civil society, business and other such social partners.

And for sure, we note [if only for the record]:- There is no problem in today’s Bahamas as persistent and pernicious as that which comes wrapped up in the guise of the undocumented immigrant who can [if they so desire] get away with crimes as gross as rape or as heinous as murder.

Today we go further by suggesting that there is an urgency in the moment which demands that no effort be spared in bringing to heel any number of wild men [some of them Haitians and Jamaicans; some of them Haitian-Bahamians; some of them Jamaican-Bahamians] who are apparently a law unto themselves.

Evidently, there are all those other true-true Bahamian thugs who could care less about the hurt they do their hard-working, decent law-abiding fellow citizens.

These are the types who – on occasion – pretend as if they are working as other workers do – but who routinely pillage property; strip business owners of the copper in their high-powered air-conditioning units; and sadder still, some of these brazen louts have now taken to pulling off snatch and grab ‘gold’ operations on this or that unsuspecting resident or citizen.

Here of late, some of the nasty stuff they have done to people waiting at stop-lights has been outrageously rude.
In truth and in fact, while we could react as others might by calling on the police to do even more – we shall not take this easy road out.

The questions, then, arise: – What is to be done? Who is to do it?

Crime must be dealt with from the roots; thus the need for each and every law-abiding Bahamian and resident to do all they can – within the four corners of the law – to make this place a better, safer and healthier society.

Evidently, therefore, an already pressured constabulary no matter how well-prepared can only do so much to stem a tide that involves so many men and women who have neither fear nor respect for God or for mankind.
And as far as we are concerned, there is no quick police-driven fix that can ever resolve the myriad of deeply rooted forces that are today bubbling up from their murky depths.