Unemployment not to blame for upsurge in crime – PM

“My experience is that in the vast majority of cases it’s greed and a quick dollar… because you have a lot of people who are unemployed, and who trying to hustle and make a dollar doing something themselves legally.”

This, according to the Prime Minister, as he refuted suggestions that the recent upsurge in crime is because of unemployment – especially among young males.{{more}}

As he spoke on Boom 106.9 SVG’s morning radio programme last Tuesday, Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves acknowledged that when individuals are economically deprived, sometimes they prefer to resort to crime instead of honest financial gain.

“You know that there is a thing called greed? There are some people who prefer to go for the proverbial pot of gold, which is there at the end of the rainbow, but it is a mirage! There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” he cautioned.

“Occasionally, you get spurts [of crime] and then you get particular periods of near complete calm. You may have a drug deal gone awry; somebody may steal somebody else drugs. So, you have persons who are engaged in certain kinds of activities… and some killings which appear opportunistic.

“Then, of course, you have a complete absence of restraint killing, like the one where Giovanni Charles, the young police officer, was killed…”

Gonsalves assured citizens that he takes the matter of citizen security very seriously, and has been consulting with the relevant authorities on what steps can be implemented to curb the recent spate of serious crimes.

“I want to give the assurance that St Vincent and the Grenadines will remain a very safe and secure place, but, of course, we have people who are seeking to disturb that tranquility.”

When asked by the show’s host, Dwight ‘Bing’ Joseph, if he was satisfied in general with the way in which the police force handles serious crimes, the Prime Minister inferred that there is room for improvement.

“I wouldn’t be happy with the responses with the police in all cases, because the responses have been of uneven quality… In some cases, the police do excellent work of an investigative kind, and in other cases they do not do it as well.”

He added: “In one or two cases which fall down in the court for technical reasons because of sloppy work. So, I can’t be happy about those things. And sometimes from a prevention point, the response is slow.”

The PM further insisted that within the entire police force there needs to be more of a sensitivity to “intelligence matters” where citizen security is concerned.

“You have to fight crime, among other things… with intelligence, with information. That is where you have to be able to prevent certain things happening, to apprehend persons who do things which are serious breaches of the law.”

On a more positive note, the PM said that in comparison to many other Caribbean countries, SVG fares much better when it comes to solving major crime.

“We have done the analysis, and our numbers of arrests in relation to offences and of convictions, in relation to serious offences, are higher than average in the Caribbean.”

He also called on citizens within the various communities to assist the police more if they have information on certain crimes. (JSV)