Trinidad bishop calls for moral regeneration: CEN 2.22.08 p 8. February 21, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies, Crime.trackback
The Bishop of Trinidad has issued a call for the moral regeneration of the Caribbean island nation, which is in the midst of a gang and drugs fueled crime wave.
Gang violence had spawned an “enormous wave of terror” that had swept “across the landscape” Bishop Calvin Bess told the congregation of Port of Spain’s Holy Trinity Cathedral on Feb 17. However the rise in youth crime was not only a failure of policing, but a collapse of the moral order. “If life has no meaning” for criminals, “how can death have any meaning?” the bishop asked.
Trinidad and Tobago has seen an upsurge in crime over the past decade. In 2000 the police service recorded 120 murders–a figure that had risen to 388 by the end of 2007. Nine murders were committed on Jan 1.
Last month the government pledged a renewed effort to tackle the violence. National Security Minister Martin Joseph told Parliament that British police were being sent to the twin-island nation to train the constabulary, and Prime Minister Patrick Manning said the government “would win the fight” against crime through the acquisition of sophisticated electronics hardware that would establish a “security blanket” around the nation.
However, opposition leaders and the media have urged a more vigorous response. The “most critical issue facing the nation is gang violence,” the Sunday Guardian said on Jan 13, as many lived “in fear for their lives with no confidence in the capacity of police officers to bring any relief to the level of crime that is now a part of their way of life.”
“We have wept enough, suffered enough, far too many lives have been snuffed out. I appeal to the youth of this land who are caught up in this culture of death to come out of the darkness,” Bishop Bess said. “Your strength, your energy can be put to much better use.”
Improved policing was but part of the solution. The Christian transformation of society was necessary so that those who had taken to a life of crime could be redeemed and reformed before they struck, the bishop said.
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