Chote, Vieira: Crime crisis needs strategy, not blame or new laws

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors Sophia Chote and An­tho­ny Vieira have de­scribed the cur­rent crime sit­u­a­tion as “deeply dis­tress­ing” and “trou­bling”, while cau­tion­ing against as­sign­ing blame to the Gov­ern­ment or rush­ing to ex­pand leg­is­la­tion.

Both sen­a­tors al­so ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the lead­er­ship of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, even as vi­o­lent crime con­tin­ues to dom­i­nate na­tion­al con­cern.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia en route to the Sen­ate, Vieira said the sit­u­a­tion de­mands “calm, clar­i­ty and a com­pre­hen­sive re­sponse to crime”.

“The fact that these mur­ders have oc­curred dur­ing a State of Emer­gency should not be used as a sim­plis­tic ba­sis to con­demn the Gov­ern­ment or the Po­lice Ser­vice,” he said. “A State of Emer­gency is a pow­er­ful le­gal in­stru­ment de­signed to pro­vide ad­di­tion­al tools to law en­force­ment, but it is not, and has nev­er been, a guar­an­teed so­lu­tion to crime.”

Vieira said there is ev­i­dence that even ex­ten­sive se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions can­not elim­i­nate crime on their own, not­ing that while polic­ing can dis­rupt crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, the un­der­ly­ing dri­vers of vi­o­lence are more com­plex.

“It calls for a so­phis­ti­cat­ed, nu­anced and co­or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al strat­e­gy. We must adopt a holis­tic ap­proach to crime—one that com­bines ef­fec­tive polic­ing with so­cial pol­i­cy, ed­u­ca­tion, eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty, youth en­gage­ment, com­mu­ni­ty em­pow­er­ment and strong in­sti­tu­tions,” he said. “Crime pre­ven­tion must be treat­ed not mere­ly as a se­cu­ri­ty is­sue, but as a na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ty.”

He added that ad­dress­ing crime re­quires an “all hands on deck” ap­proach, rather than ad­ver­sar­i­al po­lit­i­cal ex­changes.

Asked whether he had con­fi­dence in the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er amid the cur­rent chal­lenges, Vieira said, “Yeah, I think I do. He has a unique way of speak­ing, but he seems to be lead­ing from the front, and I think he’s do­ing his best.”

Mean­while, Sen­a­tor Chote said the crime sit­u­a­tion has been trou­bling for sev­er­al years and urged pa­tience as se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures take ef­fect.

“I hope that the mea­sures which are be­ing tak­en will soon bear fruit,” she said.

Asked whether a cur­few should be im­ple­ment­ed un­der the cur­rent State of Emer­gency, Chote said de­ci­sions rest with those re­spon­si­ble for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“I think all op­tions are be­ing con­sid­ered by those re­spon­si­ble for the se­cu­ri­ty of the coun­try. I don’t think we should un­der­es­ti­mate those of­fice hold­ers. They will con­sid­er what op­tions are avail­able and de­ter­mine which are ap­pro­pri­ate,” she said.

How­ev­er, she cau­tioned against the in­tro­duc­tion of ad­di­tion­al an­ti-crime leg­is­la­tion.

“Peo­ple look to leg­is­la­tion as though it is the band-aid for every sore and every cut. I don’t think that is the case. That is com­plete­ly wrong and short-sight­ed,” she said. “In­ves­ti­ga­tion, de­tec­tion, and en­sur­ing the jus­tice sys­tem works so that peo­ple are brought to jus­tice are what mat­ter most.”

Chote added that ex­ist­ing laws are al­ready strong.

“I think we have a body of leg­is­la­tion which is pret­ty pow­er­ful. Where we are falling down is in terms of de­tec­tion, charg­ing peo­ple, and bring­ing them to jus­tice,” she said.

The In­de­pen­dent bench pre­vi­ous­ly vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly against the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion, cit­ing con­cerns over ex­ces­sive ex­ec­u­tive pow­er and in­suf­fi­cient con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guards for civ­il lib­er­ties. The Gov­ern­ment sub­se­quent­ly failed to se­cure the re­quired three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty and lat­er ac­cused the sen­a­tors of ob­struct­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.

De­spite that po­si­tion, both Chote and Vieira main­tain that the leg­is­la­tion would not have been an ef­fec­tive crime-fight­ing tool.