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Take
back our streets
Pick a news
medium. Any news medium - the newspapers, television or the radio
stations. Note how many reports each day deal with incidents of
crime around the country. Then add that up for a week. Calculate
the number of reports in a month and then in any given year, and
you will find that the public of this country is becoming inundated
with reports of criminal offences against persons or property.
So much so
that the average reader, listener or viewer has become almost
immune to this barrage of crime committed daily. It fails to leave
an impact. Even the media have become somewhat blasé over the
treatment of crime.
No longer
are we horrified with the invasion of people's homes, no more
are the long discussions of how violent a society we are becoming
as more and more armed, violent and daring robberies take place.
No more that is until a particularly horrendous or gruesome crime
hits the headlines or occurs right in our own backyard. It forces
us then to focus again on the type of society we have become.
And it is this very apathy towards the situation that feeds the
criminal elements and allows their hits to be so successful. But
they need not all be successful, they have to be stopped.
There haven't
been many times when the common people have helped foil any criminal
activities. It's time we came out of our not-so-secured homes
and fought these things in the open.
Many incidents
reported show that our police cannot be relied upon to protect
people or to prevent crime. They have their own share of problems
like not enough money, transport or will. In most cases, our police
appear only concerned with taking the victims to the station and
getting their statement. We realise that paperwork is a necessity,
but must it take precedence over action? Surely getting a description
of a getaway vehicle quickly is vital if other police officers
are to be alerted and on the lookout in an armed robbery. Could
it be that not even the police are treating the situation with
the urgency it deserves? But that as it may, it is clear that
people can no longer expect the police to come to their aid when
they are being attacked. They can also not expect the police to
keep a vigilant presence around neighbourhoods and crime-prone
areas.
Whether the
reason lies in a lack of funds, resources and manpower or in a
lack of will to seriously tackle the problem, the reality is that
police too often appear too late to be of any help.
The answer
to controlling crime obviously lies elsewhere - it lies with the
people themselves. Time and again it has been shown that when
the people make a definite decision to take back their communities,
there is little room for hoodlums. The concept behind the neighbourhood
watch schemes is based on this very principle. But for the principle
to work, it requires a concerted and determined effort from all
members of a community to agree to take on the challenge and come
to the defence of another who is under attack. Street by street,
neighbourhood by neighbourhood and town by town, we can claim
back our communities.
The
Sunday Times, 27 April 2003
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