Crime is one of those topics that will not go away. A lot of Bahamians are today terrified, some wondering whether they will be next to bite the dust or to be raped or robbed by some feral creature.
The Rt. Hon. Perry Gladstone Christie once characterized some of these predators as ‘animals and brute beasts’.
His Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Security the Hon. Cynthia Pratt has said that crime is a societal problem that should be tackled collectively by the Government of The Bahamas, the Royal Bahamas Police Force and the general public and not through finger pointing.
The Deputy Prime Minister also dismissed suggestions that crime has become a phenomenon under her Government, saying that crime has haunted The Bahamas for a number of years.
No one can really disagree with her when she speaks in this vein.
There are other occasions, however, when it is clear that she is getting the entire matter wrong. But before we get to this, let it be noted that
there is many a rhetorical refuge for those who would be knaves and scoundrels. One such type invariably demands -albeit plaintively and some times brazenly- that he who is without sin, should cast the first stone.
Another describes and compares crooks to bad apples that just happen to be in the same barrel as the good. And the pathetic list of excuses and evasions go on and on.
Today there is hypocrisy, sweet talk and artful evasions as we reflect on information suggesting that the Royal Bahamas Police Force is infested with corruption.
The corruption allegation was being brought forward by the Deputy Commissioner of Police, John Rolle.
Our recommendation to all and sundry – inclusive of the Minister of National Security – is that they should demand that the officer in question do the right thing, which is that he should either withdraw the allegation and apologize for the error or substantiate what he has said about some of his colleagues.
The attentive public wants the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth concerning what is allegedly happening in the ranks of the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
Quite frankly, that public is no longer prepared to digest any of those rationalizations that compare crooks in uniform to so-called ‘bad apples’. Indeed even if that public was to assume that there are only one or two of these miscreants in the ranks of the police force, they would be obliged to look askance at all police officers.
Quite evidently, those who have been compromised and who are crooks are today virtually indistinguishable from the good ones. In our estimation, the good ones owe it to themselves and the nation that they serve to see to it that the crooks and other so-called ‘bad apples’ are all rooted out.
In this regard, we hasten to add that the Minister of National Security, is absolutely correct in her view that “recent attempts to discredit certain members of the Royal Bahamas Police Force can have a damaging impact on the credibility of the entire Force.”
We confess however that she puzzles us when she says that “persons should not lump the many good officers serving on the force with the “bad apples.”
The question at hand has absolutely nothing to do with lumping anything or anyone with any other thing or any other person. It is all about trying to figure out who is who on a police force where the good guys looks a lot like the bad guys.
In the real world, this is what corruption is all about. Even the little children know about what can happen to a flock of sheep when one wolf goes undetected as he wears sheep’s clothing.
In today’s Bahamas, this is precisely the point that is being made concerning the good cops and the bad cops on the Royal Bahamas Police Force. The attentive public needs to know who is who.
Editorial from The Bahama Journal
