Today we elaborate on the point that crime matters in the region.
In addition, we also make the point that since crime and criminals operate inter-nationally, so too must governments as they try to stem or mitigate the impacts of crime.
In a sense, therefore, the region is schizoid, veering from extremes of wealth to extremes of human distress. Haiti and Jamaica are two very telling examples.
Haiti is saturated in poverty. As we have tried to indicate on any number of occasions, this beleaguered country is desperately trying to get up from under. That country is currently being assisted by all those countries that have provided safe haven for some of its �migr�s.
In the Jamaican case, there are persistent reports concerning the extent to which that country has been terrorized and traumatized by violence. Some of it involves police. And for sure, some of it is rooted in a well organized regional criminal underground.
Unfortunately, this reality seems to elude the public in each nation in the region. This, in turn, is related to the fact that that there is a built-in tendency towards myopia on the part of people who live on islands. People who live on islands are sometimes wont to believe that somehow they are unique.
Take for example, some of the news concerning crime and its impact on one island or the other. In practically every one the story that is told concerns a society that was in the once upon a time days so very peaceful. And then there is that time worn yarn about how people could leave their doors open in the good old days.
Those days hardly ever existed. From time immemorial people have been concerned and fearful about the impact of crime.
There were times when crimes that were committed went unreported. Indeed, there are old timers around today who routinely spin any number of fascinating yarns about some of the crimes they and their cohorts committed and as to how they got away scot-free.
All of this has changed.
Crime matters more and more in societies where people are no longer prepared to be silent. And so, in this regard, we are today convinced that in The Bahamas, crime really matters now.
There is an abundance of evidence to suggest that some of this nation’s most upstanding citizens are at their wit’s end concerning what they say is a menace to them. Some of them say that they know of situations where home invasions have taken place and situations where girls and women have been assaulted. A small number of them have been raped.
On top of this, we are hearing of cases where people have been robbed at gun-point while trying to enter their own homes. Scores of other Bahamians are being traumatized as they try to fathom what is happening to their neighbours, family and friends.
The extent to which The Bahamas is a dangerously troubled place is kept safe from the prying attention of outsiders. This is due in great measure to the fact that visitors to The Bahamas -in the main- are kept far from the hot spots. But not so the rest of the population that must dance to the tune of the rapist; or turn his valuables over to the thug with the gun.
We make this observation to provide �as it were- context for commentary that seeks to warn against exaggeration about the crime problem in the Bahamas.
There are other countries where things are far worse.
In the first instance, then, The Bahamas is subject to some of the same forces that now impinge on the rest of the Caribbean.
Highest on that list would be the mass marketing of a United States popular culture that focuses on and which glorifies conspicuous consumption and the thug life. The problem is further complicated once you add to this already heady mix drugs, guns and sexual fantasies about exotic Caribbean people.
It is this toxic mix that bedevils the entire region. Packaged and presented as if they were relics of paradise, they routinely stand revealed as pieces of hell.
These places are home to almost forty million people, some of whom live in luxury while very many others eke out a meager existence rooted in poverty and squalor.
It is this stark contrast that makes things seem so very bad in so very many Caribbean nations. They can and should work together for the betterment of all their peoples.
Editorial from The Bahama Journal
