Crime and Poverty: Persistent Social Issues and their Impact on Communities and Government Resources

Issues such as crime and poverty are social issues. There is no doubt about it. There are issues that have been with mankind since the beginning of time based on what the history books have taught us.

However, these topics often become political issues because in a sense we depend on the powers that be to use their good office to prevent and manage such.

We concede there will never be full eradication of poverty or zero crime. Such utopia does not exist.

The apparent resurgence of murders in recent weeks has brought the menacing issues of crime to the fore yet again, and rightly so. Crime does not simply affect the victim or the perpetrator, it has a holistic impact. Killings committed in a community rocks the entire neighbourhood. Those who lose a loved one are affected; those who witness the crime are affected; those who live in the area are affected. The entire country is jolted whether you know the individual or not.

It places an added burden on government resources. It adds to the load of the Police Service, the Judicial system and the penal system.

Added to all that, at a time like this when tourism authorities are reporting an increase in visitor arrivals due to the staging of the ICC T20 World Cup, it affects our country’s image as well.

On Wednesday, Zakhir Avion Goodridge, 19, from Crescent Hill, Gall Hill, Christ Church was shot and killed while four others whom he had been liming with just outside the Aberdeene Jones Centre on the corner of Crescent Road and Upper Gall Hill Road, are now nursing gunshot wounds.

According to reports, there were gunshots just before 9.30 a.m., sending residents and people doing business at the nearby offices, shops and in the centre and Market scampering.

The day before on Tuesday evening, Shawn Williams, 44, was shot and killed just steps from his Boscobelle, St Peter home. Williams had just returned home from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where his father Pearson Williams had dropped him off around 6:45 p.m.

Communications and public affairs officer Inspector Rodney Inniss confirmed that police responded to a report of a shooting incident at approximately 6:50 p.m.

“He was walking the pathway to his house when a number of explosions were heard and the deceased was later discovered motionless on the ground. Investigations are ongoing,” Inniss explained.

Last week, two St Michael men were killed in separate shootings. Chad Roett, 32, of Proute, St Thomas, and Raheam Brathwaite, 30, of Melvin’s Avenue, Black Rock, were shot within minutes of each other. One at 9:50 p.m. in 4th Avenue, Harts and the other around 9:58 p.m. in Boyce’s Road, Free Hill, Black Rock.