Team Unity should concentrate more on building trust between the government and the people and also trust and goodwill between the police and the people of the various communities. No one is likely to want to pass on information to the police if that person does not feel that he can trust the police.
Government should also think about beefing up its Witness Protection Programme in order to remove all fears and doubts from the minds of likely or potential witnesses. Asking people to say something if they have seen something will work only if the people in question are convinced that they can trust the Police, or the government or both.
It must be realized that the latest amendment to our laws relate to the matter of sentencing. The criminal must first be caught and tried and convicted before he is sentenced. If the criminal is not caught and convicted in Court then the latest amendment to the law would not apply. And we need information in order to be able to convict a person. And here is where the question of trust and goodwill comes in.
Our country so far has never had a problem with the sentencing of criminals. So far our problem has been the catching of criminals. And after all you cannot sentence a criminal unless you first catch him.
In closing this article, I would like to urge government to be extremely careful in making the next decision concerning the final location of the new Basseterre High School. We cannot play careless with the quality of the water in the aquifer in the Basseterre Valley.
The government should always remember that before a criminal can be sentenced he must first be caught and tried and convicted. If the criminals cannot be caught then increasing the severity of the penalty does not make much sense.
It is only propaganda. We should first try to strengthen our capacity to catch the criminals. It is more like trying to count your chickens before they are hatched.