The self-de­struc­tive na­ture of so much of the crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties be­ing car­ried out by ri­val gangs con­tin­ues with no abate­ment. In­deed, gang lead­ers and their fol­low­ers are adept at in­vent­ing rea­sons for con­tin­u­ing to slaugh­ter each oth­er.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the vi­o­lence is oc­cur­ring in the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty in Port-of-Spain south, re­port­ed­ly be­tween res­i­dents of Pi­o­neer and Pro­duc­tion dri­ves, names which must have been giv­en back in the 1960s-1970s to be rep­re­sen­ta­tive of ini­tia­tives for hu­man growth and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

In the cir­cum­stances of what has been tak­ing place over the last two weeks, mem­bers of the po­lice ser­vice have in­evitably been drawn in­to the con­flict to per­form their du­ty to en­force the law against those break­ing it. How­ev­er, res­i­dents of Pro­duc­tion Dri­ve are claim­ing that the po­lice fired on them while they were sim­ply at­tempt­ing to erect a fence for their safe­ty against their neigh­bours.

That is a com­plaint which should be im­me­di­ate­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the se­nior of­fi­cers in the ser­vice. It can­not be al­lowed, if there is sub­stance to the al­le­ga­tions, that po­lice of­fi­cers are spread­ing rather than re­tard­ing vi­o­lence.

The re­al­i­ty, though, is that po­lice of­fi­cers, over a long pe­ri­od of time and on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, have been charged and con­vict­ed of be­ing in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. As a re­sult of such a his­to­ry, mem­bers of the pub­lic are wont to be­lieve when al­le­ga­tions of this kind are made against them. Hence the need to find the truth.

But be­neath and be­yond all of the present, the re­al prob­lems of Sea Lots and oth­er com­mu­ni­ties in the area and oth­er parts of the coun­try, have to do with hu­man un­der­de­vel­op­ment.

The in­suf­fi­cien­cy of ini­tia­tives to move cit­i­zens through stages of growth and self-de­vel­op­ment that can take them, es­pe­cial­ly the young, out of the cy­cle of hu­man and phys­i­cal pover­ty and ig­no­rance is an ob­vi­ous re­tard­ing fac­tor.

It is clear from the growth in so­cial prob­lems and crime, not on­ly in Sea Lots but in com­mu­ni­ties in sev­er­al parts of Trinidad in par­tic­u­lar, but now spread­ing to To­ba­go, that there is need for at­ten­dance to cer­tain so­cial class­es of cit­i­zens in the in­ter­est of the na­tion.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, be­yond the po­lice ar­rest­ing and suc­cess­ful­ly tak­ing of­fend­ers to court with the rit­u­al­is­tic stay in prison, lit­tle im­pact will be made on the core prob­lems of de­vis­ing pro­grammes and strate­gies to suc­cess­ful­ly break the cy­cle and lead to new hope.

The claim is that such pro­grammes are too few and in­ad­e­quate­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly de­signed and man­aged, so that the con­di­tions in­side the pris­ons mil­i­tate against suc­cess. As such, young men and women live lives cy­cling be­tween jail terms and short pe­ri­ods out­side, in­evitably do­ing phys­i­cal harm to cit­i­zens at­tempt­ing to raise the qual­i­ty of their lives.

The na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty must find the mech­a­nisms and the will to break the cy­cles of vi­o­lence and pover­ty.

The chal­lenges go be­yond pro­vid­ing tem­po­rary em­ploy­ment for youth, the es­tab­lish­ment and func­tion­ing of trade schools and the sev­er­al train­ing pro­grammes for young peo­ple in work es­tab­lish­ments. Amongst that which is need­ed is nour­ish­ing hope in young peo­ple as well as re­al demon­stra­tions of car­ing for them.