Impunity in injury and death

Does our experience of violent crime constitute a public health emergency? Despite the cynical mockery in some quarters, it certainly does. It meets all the globally accepted criteria related to causes, effects, and possible responses.

However, since a Caricom resolution almost two years ago to employ such an approach, there appears to have been little effort anywhere to build appropriate levels of both public and official awareness to generate the required broad support.

In essence, such an approach recognises the impact of violent crime on high mortality and injury rates, negative psycho-social manifestations, and adverse implications for delivery of public healthcare.

There is a lot more to it than these principal elements, but I want us to spend some time considering the additional, and not entirely unrelated, crisis unfolding on our public roadways.

In many respects, acknowledgement of these two plagues – violent crime and road traffic mayhem - as critical challenges to national health, safety, and security is an important first step in recognising our joint responsibility for addressing them.

Among the last things people here want to be punished with are PR-nuanced statistics about reductions in the number of homicides and road traffic deaths.

Find a way of recording and acknowledging fear and you will better understand what I mean by this. People are witnessing the carnage daily. I have obviously not seen today’s reports yet but turn the pages of this very newspaper and you will understand what I mean.

There are people deciding not to go about what is expected to be their normal business because of the fear generated by the prevalence of both forms of violence, property loss, injury, and death.

In the process, public participation in defying the instinct to surrender is diminished.

In much the same way there are so many of us who know at least one person who has been affected by crime in its numerous manifestations, we can also point to a friend, relative, colleague, community member, or other acquaintance who has witnessed or been the victim of a horrible road experience.

Don’t look at the big turnouts at seasonal events alone to argue against these observations. They provide evidence of a resolve not to yield to pervasive anxieties about the prospect of harm and are not outright dismissal of pervasive realities and risks.

This is also not to point fingers at the poor policing of violent crimes and traffic laws, because the sustenance of fear is a joint enterprise that goes beyond the role of a single underlying factor. The police enter the picture rather late in the process of decay.

However, this is not to take them off the hook. People predisposed to violent or reckless behaviour thrive in an environment under which they are more likely than not to escape untouched (if they don’t suffer injury or death in the process), as opposed to being promptly intercepted, properly judged, and punished if responsible.

There is also the near complete absence of pre-emptive policing measures as contemplated by advocates of so-called “broken windows” theory (with all due provisos regarding its non-discriminatory implementation). For this, it is proposed that early symptoms of disorder in the form of ostensibly benign violations (Littering? Noise pollution? Public peeing?)  should be summarily nipped in the bud. (Yes, “nipped.”)

So, no objection from me regarding the prompt and widespread ticketing of drivers for everything from unlawful window tints to failed sobriety tests. No, there aren’t “more important things they should be spending their time and energy on.” If the authorities can’t meet their elementary mandates, then what’s the sense?

Ditto actions to address breaches of the public peace. I have been following the futile public complaints of one community regarding the loud noise generated by a single bar in the area. The police have a role to play outside of the limited actions related to the country’s Noise Pollution Rules. Hint: see what the Summary Offences Act [Chapter 11:02] says about “public nuisance.”

No, the amorphous “culture of noise” is a broken window to be repaired and the people who routinely break it need to be held responsible.

Even so, don’t get me wrong. A “solution” to the current mayhem is thus more than addressing a clearly deficient police response. While “terrorism” might be an appropriate metaphor and legislative stimulant it does nothing to address some fundamentals.

Impunity through ineffective policing bears tragic fruit elusive even of declared states of public emergency. Nowadays, we are experiencing its bitter taste.