Now I am not an expert on crime, or the behavioral patterns of criminals but, it appears that their respect for law enforcement is at a zero!
Many of you can remember the incident where a gunman jumped the wall of Government House and fatally shot a Royal Bahamas Defense Force officer in the guard room.
Or a more recent incident where a gunman casually walked into a gas station parking lot and shot a pump attendant, before fleeing on foot.
Government House should be considered one of the most secured places on New Providence in regards to security measures. And, you would think that the gas station that was merely 100 feet away, give or take, from a police station would be safe.
But it seems that nowhere is off limits to these criminals. This raises the question, “Do these criminals fear authority?”
It seems like every other day there is a new incident report with outlaws having no sense of morality. Do the streets no longer have a code? Is it now “kill everyone in sight no matter where”?
Gone are the days when women, children and the elderly were safe from piercing bullets. Nowadays, mothers are burying their infants; fathers burying their daughters and grandchildren burying their grandparents all because miscreants have no moral code.
In the famous words of former Prime Minister, Dr. Hubert Minnis, “Have you no soul? Where is your compassion? Do you have a heart?”.
It is time for fear of authority to be placed in the hearts of these lawbreaking individuals. Action must be taken to correct this lack of respect!
We cannot take on the “Let them kill each other out”, approach to crime to fix these issues. There needs to be more outreach programs in schools, mentorship programs for young men and women, more strict penalties for repeat offenders and actual correctional programs for incarcerated individuals.
The Prime Minister recently gave a national statement, encouraging the judiciary to have an aggressive approach when dealing with individuals that are accused of committing serious crimes. He also proposed a new bill that will automatically deny bail to anyone that is a repeat offender.
I guess you can say this is a step in the right direction but there is still much to be done to solve these issues.
But until then God bless The Bahamas.
