A major root causes of crime

Introduction

There is a blame game going on when it comes to dealing with the crime situation particularly blaming the Commissioner of the Police, the Governor and the Premier. I too blamed these individuals sometimes and the reason I blamed them is because we are not finding and arresting the criminals. However, even if they were to find the criminals, there will always be other criminals among us because we need to address the root causes of crime and one of the root causes of crime is that there is a breakdown in our families.

Breakdown in our families

There is a breakdown in our family structure. Our family is not the way it used to be. We are not raising our young men and women like how our parents raised us. There is no order in some of our families, there is little supervision of our children, there is the absence of one of one of the parents and so some young people are doing what they want to do and even raising themselves and when there is no law and order, it is an invitation for violence.

Our young people are no longer listening to gospel music. They spend a lot of their time listening to secular music and we as parents sometimes do not even know what our children are listening to.  Whatever they are listening to, they may act it out. I interviewed my son, Jowell which will be aired this week on my YouTube channel. He told me that most of the music they listened to, has lyrics about killing and sex and so people will act that out. It is time we know what our children are listening to and restrict what they can listen to. This simple little act may save their lives or prevent them from becoming violent.

We grew up going to church every Sunday and as a result there was a fear of God and because there was a fear of God, we did not do some of the things that we knew were wrong. Today, many of us are not taking our families to church and so our children do not know about the fear of God and because they do not fear God, they have become fearless and committed violent crimes. I therefore challenge the church to go families if the families are not going to the church.

We also grew up as a community where our neighbours would chastise us if we did something wrong or they would tell our parents. Today, if some of our neighbours chastise our children, we ge offended. Furthermore, some of our neighbours may see our children doing things out of the way but we do not tell the parents and so some parents are blinded at what their children do.

Of course, there are some parents who well know what is going on in their homes. There are red flags. They see their children with expensive items, and they are not working but we accept some of the things they brought into our homes without asking questions. You see the love of money is one of the reasons why these crimes are taking place in our country. We have created a greedy society, and everybody wants more money, and they will do whatever it takes to get money. One short cut is getting involve in the sale of drugs.

Some families are also aware who are committing these crimes, but they think they are saving their families by not saying anything. They need to report their family and get help for them otherwise they will continue to commit crimes.

Conclusion

Think about crime in terms of your health. The doctor did not cause you to be unhealthy unless he or she gave you the wrong medication which is uncommon. The point I am trying to make is that we blamed the doctors for our conditions when all we need to do is to address the root cause of or health issue which is our diet. The same is with crime. The police are not responsible for making criminals, there are other factors such as the breakdown in families. The job of the police is to catch the criminals and so the police is not responsible for how an individual became a criminal.

Let me conclude with this bold statement. Perhaps it is time for a change in leadership at the Police Force but even if there is a change (whether local or expatriate), if we do not address the root causes of crime, criminal activities will continue to take place. Family needs to take responsibility and rebuild the family structure that has been destroyed.