By Raffique Shah
March 14, 2026

We citizens—I think I can safely say the majority among us—have never given up fighting crime. We never needed any special crime plan. If various pieces of legislation govern the protective services and other institutions, armed forces, Prison Service and the Judiciary in its broadest sense, then why do we need any plan to fight crime?

By simply enforcing the existing laws, those we have been governed by for over a century, we should have complete control over crime. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Even simpler are the laws that govern the everyday functioning of the society with an existing population of just over 1.5 million.

If they were properly tutored, every secondary school student would be able to recite the laws by heart. The criminal laws and judicial systems that we use should by now have advanced so that every officer in the all-important crime-fighting department would also know the laws by heart.

In a population with mostly non-criminal citizens, but with 10% hardcore criminals, it is difficult to understand why today we are being held to ransom by that 10%.

Often, while looking at television’s crime programmes, I hear an officer warning citizens to be on their best behaviour before they have their rights impinged—at which time I do a double take, as I am sure many others looking on do. Who is he talking to?

And, then I wonder to myself: which criminal does he think is sitting down in front of their television set at that hour, listening to him admonishing them? Sir, I can assure you that at that time, not even a crooked politician has time to listen to you yap.

All that is happening at 6 o’clock in the evening is your law-abiding citizens are locking their houses like Fort Knox, listening to your programme with one ear while the other one operates like a satellite listening for potential home invasions.

So, now that we know only the average lawful citizen is tuning in to the crime programmes and the nightly news, and only those conscientious people have read and understood the laws of the land and are more or less compliant, I believe it is now safe to assume that we have dropped the ball in a few areas non-relevant to the compliant populace.

When the police falter in their duties, we pay the price. Because out there, there are many money-hungry lawyers with eyes trained to find loopholes and mistakes made by the authorities, all of which contribute to freeing criminals, some of whom have committed the worst crimes out there. How often do we hear of a criminal being well processed, brought to trial in a timely manner, being lawfully tried (as would be the usual case), and sentenced to extended time in prison or death?

Our justice system, while not archaic, is like a tired donkey. It just can’t make it anymore with the case and trial overload. Either we are lacking staff or we must face the elephant in the room—we have unscrupulous lawyers who would stoop so low as to swindle every Tom, Dick, Janice and Harrybance out of their hard-earned $500-$1,000 each time they represent them. How low is that?

We must ask ourselves, too, where are the lawmakers when the Judiciary and, before that, Parliament are seeking to make laws to keep our entire system flowing? By the time we reach the end of this system and are ready to penalise the lawbreakers, who numerically form a majority, they are likely to be out there breaking laws. We hear and read of them every day in the news. I should add that while we net the “small fries” and haul them before the courts and toss them in prison for limited times, the other lawbreakers who are contemptible in society are hardly ever held and brought to book.

Over a one-month period, say, we have the news report and we hear of a couple hundred grab-and-rob incidents, refusals to attend court, and scores of family court appearances which all go unresolved. Multiply that by hundreds of traffic and motor vehicle offences or senior State officials who simply ignore the laws, even judges who have the power of arrest.

Little wonder when we look at the overall system, we have more law officials breaking the law and getting away scot-free, with mostly the common lawbreakers facing trials. They then have no fear of facing justice which has taken onto itself powers that render them immune.

Such is the mockery of our laws making our justice system murkier. There can be no laws—however twisted they are or finely tuned—to penalise the hardcore criminals, while the soft-core pay off the debts.

And you wonder why we are in this mess?