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My experience knocking on doors in Warwick is the same as that of every other candidate in this coming election.

Most people will tell you straight up that crime is a major concern that we must get to grips with. There is way too much of it, and the police are in a desperate struggle to stop it. There are two important questions here.

The first is why so many of our young people feel that getting involved in crime is an acceptable life choice.

The second is what can we do to help the Police fight crime more effectively.

The answer to the first question seems to be that many of our young people today - a minority, yes, but a significant minority - simply do not choose a better way.

While I am a firm believer that individuals must take responsibility for their actions, I also believe that our young people have been let down by society in ways that has made it easier for them to lose their way. Consider what they are dealing with.

They live with a failing public school system, broken family units, housing beyond reach, rampant materialism and a double standard in public life in which there seems to be one set of rules for the higher-ups and another set the rest of us.

As if these challenges weren't enough, many young people are not being equipped to deal with life and the adversities that inevitably spring up. Social promotion does them no favours. Failure to discipline or confront their behaviour does not make them strong. Giving them things too easily undermines their work ethic.

Out of this mix, a culture of crime has emerged in which there is no respect for authority, no fear of punishment, no accountability and loyalties that do not consider community and country.

Lasting progress against crime will not happen unless we see it as a creature of our society. We can't look at crime in isolation. We must tackle its underlying causes. Only then can we reach our young before they take steps that none of us want them to take. It will take an island-wide, community-based and family-deep effort to turn things around. It will take all of us working together. It's not just a Police issue. It's a Bermuda issue.

Having said that, we also have to do what we can today to help our hard-pressed Police, which brings me to the second question I posed: What can be done to help Police fight crime more effectively?

The United Bermuda Party has a broad plan to deal with crime, but there is one thing we can do in the first instance that is extremely important: Hire enough Police to do the job we expect them to do, and pay them adequately for the job. Insufficient Police numbers has been a huge problem in recent years and from where I sit, I don't see much happening to improve the situation.

This to me is critical. People need to see the strong arm of the law in action every day so they know it's there, and active. People need to believe that there is a good chance that if they commit a crime they will be caught and punished.

People need to know that crime does not pay. We need deterrence in Bermuda now, before things get further out of hand.

A safer Bermuda is possible if we give the Police the resources and support they need, and then let's focus on doing what is necessary to raise our children to be strong citizens of a country they can believe in. n

R. Wayne Scott is the United Bermuda Party candidate for Warwick North Central, Constituency 27.[[In-content Ad]]

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