Who Do We Blame?

By Kerwin De Matas

I just wanted to make an opinion that I 've made before, and I am going to make it again. Who should we as a society, blame on crime... I think everyone has been a little bit unfair towards some of the people that have been judged and sent to do their time.

Give them positive activities

I am not justifying what these people have done, but It wouldn't help if I had to blame them either. You have people that live in low housing areas( and I mean some are terrible! )that are totally forgotten or unknown to citizens of certain countries.

Crowded neighborhoods

Being honest now, some of us live in areas that are not so threatened by high crime levels. Some of us would even like to forget that these areas even exist. Horrors... absent parents, abusive parents, drugs, prostitution ....the perfect breeding ground for would be delinquents. Doesn't any one understand that growing up in these situations can traumatise a child?

Slums in a big city

There you have it, low self esteem, peer pressure and the problems develop. I am not a psychiatrist or a phsycologist, I'm just elaborating a little on the experiences that some people live and how lucky other people are to have stable homes ( doesn't always mean that one has to be rich to have that )and families to look out for them. Now, all these professionals, instead of giving us their text book theories, why don't they try to get into these real situations in these affected neighborhoods and learn from them.

We want them to be proper models, right?

There is a real chance that a solution can be found. Try listening to the people when they speak. Minister of education, get the picture, guidance officers are needed for schools! This is not a joke. In Trinidad and Tobago we also have a lot of troubled youth, and of course, alot of work is needed there as well, but, we do have guidance officers at our schools. Instead of suspending them, or worse, expelling our students, it's just waiting for the bomb to explode( through this system, we are creating monsters).

Make them, then kill them...

Delinquents did not have these counsellings or genuine support when they were kids, that's why they need professional counselling now that they are in our prisons. As a society, we need to accept the truth that in our countries,'delinquents' were made by the same society, that now wants to throw them in prisons and lose the keys. Let's open our eyes, and face our problems.