People are very quick to lay the blame game for the increase in violent crime on the backs of the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS) by some harsh words on the media house blogging sites or calling into the Radio Talk shows.

However, when it comes to actually getting up from their comfortable surroundings albeit at home, at a restaurant or propping up a bar, to actually go to a seminar and hear first hand what is being done and how they can help overcome the violent crime wave in Cayman, they actually don’t care that much.

That can only be the conclusion from the astonishingly low turnout at a crime prevention seminar hosted by the RCIPS on Thursday (3).

Gun crimes, robberies, home invasions, muggings, bag snatching, door step hold-ups and two murders all taking place inside a month the crime seminar was not high up on the agenda to actually warrant people’s precious time to actually listen, learn and help.

Even with William Shagoury, chairman of the Clarendon Crime Prevention Committee, Jamaica, giving the keynote speech, he did not warrant a pique of interest.

Shagoury gave this warning to the people of the Cayman Islands.

“The poor turnout does not bode well in the fight against rising crime levels,” he said. “It is not until all members of a community have had enough and come together to take collective crime prevention action, in coordination with the police and relevant authorities, that crime can be reduced.”

Business owners are vociferous in their condemnation of the current crime wave but they were conspicuous by their absence at the seminar.

The persons that actually attended were mainly staff at government agencies or board members of the seminar’s partner agencies, the Cayman Islands Tourism Association and the Chamber of Commerce. As for the person in the street that is apt to get mugged – well, perhaps he felt safer being at home. Although by the number of the recent home break-ins I don’t think he or she is.

Chief Superintendent Kurt Walton expressed his disappointment at seeing so many empty chairs at the seminar.  He said the police are but one spoke in the wheel when it comes to fighting crime and policing by consent.

Crime can only be stamped out when everyone makes it their business to do what they can to prevent crime, report what they see and become involved in the general welfare of society.

Shagoury said the amount of money spent on fighting crime is not the sole solution. Turning around the crime levels in Clarendon was through the community reaching the end of its rope when it came to tolerating crime.

It was only after the community and a multi-agency approach with the crime reduction committee in Clarendon that there was a reduction in the murder rate from three or four murders a week at one point to less than half a dozen a year.

Poverty is and continues to be a major cause of crime, he said, so injecting money into the community to help develop small and medium enterprises and infrastructure improvements was the first step in the crime reduction strategy. Ignorance, poor levels of education and a lack of access to knowledge and information were also major causes.

Shagoury also pointed the finger at dishonesty and corruption among the authorities and politicians, with the development of cultures of dependency, fuels crime, as well as the problems of drug dons filling the vacuum left by the authorities in deprived neighbourhoods.

It is only when the community comes together and fights crime at its grassroots that incorporates all the factors he mentioned would the crime levels come down.

“Imposing projects or crime prevention initiatives on the community doesn’t work,” he said. “It must come from the people.”

Let us therefore be warned. There will be no solution to our current crime wave until WE ACTUALLY CARE!!!