We were this morning appalled and flabbergasted when we heard a report which featured an opinion coming from a senior police officer. This man was heard by tens of thousands of Bahamians as he expressed his disgust at a system which had, according to him, abandoned capital punishment.
Apart from his gross misunderstanding of the facts, the senior police officer was wrong for encroaching on a territory best occupied by others.
What is interesting about this case is that it continues a disturbing trend which has police officers engaging in any number of windy dialogues and diatribes about crime and punishment in The Bahamas. Unfortunately, most of this chatter amounts to little more than platitudes and banalities.
The police would be immensely more effective were they to stop the chatter and get on with the job they are paid to do which – plain and simple – is policing.
When, for example, police officers come forward with opinions about how crimes are being committed; who might be committing them and how hurt they were when they visited certain crime scenes, they are getting off on the wrong wicket. The public wants them to get on with the job of policing, not with the job of talking about their feelings about their work.
None of this is to suggest that we are averse to the idea of police being involved in wholesome community activities like walkabouts. Indeed, we encourage and support community based policing. In all instances, however, their work should be about law enforcement. Our peeve is otherwise.
Here of late anyone and everyone with an opinion can be heard sounding off on any number of issues. In most instances, these mouthings are innocently harmless. However, some of them are down-right dangerous.
When certain senior police officers unburden themselves of views and opinions about crime and punishment, they often reveal their own profound ignorance of both etiquette and the law. In one particularly egregious example of ignorance, a senior police officer expatiated on his deeply held views about the efficacy of capital punishment, averring that if hangings were resumed crime rates would plummet.
Apart from the dubious nature of his premise, the point must be made that this penalty is still on the law books of The Bahamas. There is no moratorium concerning its use. Indeed, when it was applied two years ago, it was done so in compliance with the law.
It is also true, too, that no one has been hanged since then because of the rules and regulations relevant to the application of that draconian law. So, without belabouring the obvious, the point we make for emphasis is that police officers, in particular, should be careful what they say about the laws on the books.
In our considered judgment, police officers should restrict themselves to their sphere of responsibility which is law enforcement. They should leave word-mongering and cheap palaver to others. It really is as simple as that.
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Crime and Tourism
While public opinion in The Bahamas is focused on the destructiveness of a small number of thugs and bandits who are bent on ruining themselves and this nation, the news from afar is that tourism is making steady progress in Cuba.
As Anita Snow reports: “Betting on tourism to pull Cuba out of its economic slump, President Fidel Castro presided over the opening of the island’s largest resort, a sprawling complex of 944 rooms on the northeastern coast where Christopher Columbus landed in 1492.
“Tourists wearing T-shirts and shorts joined hundreds of the socialist nation’s political elite in business suits and elegant dresses in celebrating Tuesday’s opening of Hotel Playa Pesquero in the eastern province of Holguin.
“Castro, wearing his typical olive green military uniform, touted the amenities of the new resort during the inauguration, which was broadcast across the nation on state television.
“The Cuban leader’s presence, and the broadcast, showed the enormous importance the government places on this new project in particular and tourism in general. Hotels in Holguin draw visitors primarily from Canada, Germany, Britain, Italy, France and Switzerland.
“Our friends from the north are not in this list,” Castro said with a grin, referring to Americans who are restricted by U.S. Treasury Department regulations from traveling to the island.
“The day that Americans are allowed freely are allowed freely to travel to Cuba “we will practically have to move from the country, that day their constitutional right to travel is respected,” Castro joked. The $100 million complex was completed in 22 months using Cuban capital and construction workers with technical assistance by the French firm Bouygues, Castro said. It will be managed by Gaviota S.A., one of the Cuban government’s numerous tour operators.”
This is but one sign of the times which should give the Ministry of Tourism in The Bahamas cause to reflect on the urgency of the need for this country to redouble its efforts to clean up its image. The truth, today, is that it is only a matter of time before the word gets out that things are not getting better in The Bahamas.
Editorial, The Bahama Journal
