Good citizens suffer when we go soft on crime

She is serving time in prison apparently for drugs that do not belong to her. Her children are left unattended and her career ruined. She could have done much better because she lived on one acre of fenced land. She could have planted a garden and made a good living but the mentally deranged neighbour kept vandalizing the property cutting the chain link fence with an illegal bull cutter.

He is not a construction worker and should not be in possession of such dangerous tools. In Union Island vegetables and fruits can fetch a tidy sum despite the small consumer market. She had plans for sales by the pound in dollars of lettuce 10, cabbage 8, carrots 8, eggplant 7, tomatoes 10, pak choy 10, kale 10, green corn 5, pumpkin 5, watermelon 5, ochro 5, green pigeon peas 10, cassava 5, peanuts 10, potatoes 5, sorrel 5, callaloo 5, bagi 5, spinach 5, string beans 5- estimated price per lb of some products in Union Island.

If she had the time she could add value per pound to some of the products by processing them. Roasted corn sells at $5. chilli bibby (parched and ground corn) sells at $ 20.

Reports to the police, police complaints, and Ministry of Health all apparently yielded no result. The mentally deranged man continues to vandalize the fence preventing the tenants from earning decent living from lucrative gardening. The man is currently cutting down the lone tamarind tree on the land, the equivalent of mainland’s breadfruit tree.

That tree was a saviour to so many poor people who picked and marketed the fruit.

Ignoring all this vandalism, based on information received, the police promptly showed up on the vandalized property and expeditiously imprisoned one of the tenants. Some people say that unless it is drugs, the police have no interest in the case. They apparently only run after drugs.

This is a social problem but the social worker has no interest. This is a psychiatric problem but the psychiatrist has not attended to it apparently because the Ministry of Health has no interest. The Ministry of Agriculture has not noted the implications for our food security. This economic problem does not attract the Ministry of Finance.

The widespread deficiency in reading and reasoning should attract the Ministry of Education that should note the number of delinquents who fall into crime because of ignorance and the lack of practice in reading.

In any case mental illness worsens without treatment and the mostly innocent languish in jail while good citizens suffer outside because of apparent softness on crime.

Anthony G. Stewart