The constitution, a crime plan and an unequal society

The Mitsubishi evolution is, quite frankly, a sports car. It is also affordable to the middle-income guy and corners like it is on rails.

Some years ago, Mitsubishi made an altered version intended to make inroads into the European market. It was called the Mitsubishi Sportback. It was, in essence, a hatchback Evolution with an automatic Tiptronic transmission.

Although it was quite a fast car and had far more comfort frills than the traditional Evolution, it did not have the same impact.

It is not that anything was wrong with it, it is just that the cornering ability was not as great and the horsepower seemed less. It was, in essence, a great car, but not one that you could use for racing like its relative, the famous “Evo”.

So now let us look at our constitution. It is a document written and inspired by men who had felt the stab of Government oppression, but like the sportsback, it is the wrong fit for a nation at war.

Like the constitution of the United States of America (USA), it is structured to protect our citizens from its Government. The constitution, however, left some leeway to adapt various acts and laws to protect the people from the predators among them.

Well, whatever wiggle room we had disappeared when we adjusted the constitution to comply with the guidelines to become a signature to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. We removed the exceptions that would allow for us to introduce Acts such as the Suppression of Crime Act and any version of it that we may desire.

We are left only with the state of public emergency as the single tool to allow for extraordinary powers of remand.

As a result, we have a massive gang crisis that is gripping the country at a growing rate, fighting its way back to former peaks such as 2009 and 2017.

The Opposition calls for a plan.

The Government refuses to publish one as they say they cannot see the sensibility of telling the gangs their strategy. To me it is all just politics.

I say this because no plan that any technocrat or wizard writes can in any way dent the gangs in any significant manner. The reason is: this is a crisis that almost every solution that could or needs to be employed is unconstitutional.

So any plan will just be the usual big words and rhetoric that simply fills pages. But just for the hell of it, let me give you an example to develop the intelligence-gathering capability of the force with an aim to develop strategies to surgically target gang members and its leadership. Are you guys vomiting yet? You should be if you are sick of the same words, words and more words.

I guess that is why I am not a politician because my reply to “Where is the crime plan?” would be, “No plan that we can write can work with this constitution and its limitations.”

So, in a nutshell, if we do not alter that document to allow for the all-out war that we would require to win, we will one day have to negotiate terms with gang leaders of this country.

You think it is far-fetched? Look at Northern Ireland. There are men in that Government that were terrorists in the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The British, after years of human rights abuses against the Irish, had to settle with a deal that put men like Jerry Adams in Government. This is because they were losing. They, in essence, gave up because they had no choice.

I am not saying they should ever have been in that country, because they should not have. But still – terrorists! ‘Lawd’ man.

However, I would not be surprised to, one day, see us bargaining with gang leaders for territory or a tax that is paid directly to them. If you think I am drunk, just consider for a moment the days of “Bulby”, “Dudus”, “Jim Brown” and “Feather Mop”.

Do you think our Government could control them? Well get ready, because those days are coming back.

No party wants to say what I am saying. Some members, the underexposed, actually believe we can fight a war with a handbook designed for law enforcement. The experienced know better. But who wants to say that we need wargeared control powers to fight a bunch of dunces? Nobody does. But a dunce with a machine gun is a dangerous man. Try 10,000 dunces all armed.

It is just not good politics. Neither does it inspire confidence, nor does it motivate the populace to work and hope for better days.

The adjustment required to the constitution will allow for rule changes that are not pretty, but necessary in a state of war. If the last couple months cannot convince you that this is a war, then you must be either living and working uptown, or the most insensitive person I hope not to meet.

A state of war is not just defined by a government declaration or the presence of a foreign threat. Nor is it only one when the killing is taking place above Cross Roads.

The adjustment I speak of needs to bring about changes that, to many, would be invisible because you are not a criminal.

For example, when a man is charged or wanted for a criminal offence, the investigating officer should be able to walk into the phone company and walk out with his call records.

This can be done now, but the process is far more bureaucratic and less time efficient. This is because the phone company is not bound by law to hand over information quickly and at that level of the investigative process. Records of who you call should be simple to attain in an investigation into criminal gangs that kill over 1,000 people a year.

An Internment Act cannot be introduced, but needs to be if we are to fight a war. You do not have to charge prisoners of war (POW), do you?

You cannot draft the populace into the armed services with our current constitution. If we are really going to win this war then this is a tool the Government may need to have at its disposal.

All this may seem drastic to you, but these men are killing babies. I bet it does not seem that drastic if you consider them killing yours.

We are not going to achieve any solution to this emergency without emergency measures. It is that simple.

So it does not matter how many big words politicians put on paper, and say on microphones. The change in the short run begins with an acceptance that these criminals need to be looked at as enemies, not as fellow citizens.

In the long run, however, the poor need to be accommodated and not just tolerated. People must live at a standard that gangs cannot exist among them, preying on them, ruling them.

These gangs exist because these slums exist. These slums exist because inequality exists. Inequality exists because we are at the core divided.

So we prefer that our armed forces do not have the power to fight the gangs for fear those powers will be used to suppress us. But we have no problem with the gangs’ continued suppression of our poor and powerless.

I guarantee you that no government will ever use laws to harm anyone to the extent that these criminals are preying on the least fortunate among us.

Three groups exist in this country – us, them and the gunmen. This starts to change when there is no ‘them’, just one united ‘us’ against the gunman.