The National Rally Against Crime scheduled for Wednesday had to be postponed because of rain, but that shouldn’t dampen the spirits of those in this country who want to unite against the growing crime occurring on Grand Cayman.
As the Chamber of Commerce said in its impassioned letter to the editor of this newspaper earlier this week, the time has come for every resident of Grand Cayman to stand and act to help remove the criminal menaces from our society.
The Government has praised the Chamber for its bold stance, and so has this newspaper. It is good for a leading organisation like the Chamber to stand up and be heard on this important issue.
However, we must warn about over-reacting in the face of the threat, and of not exaggerating the threat in the first place.
We can all agree the current crime levels are unacceptable, but we really must keep things in perspective, especially in our response.
We draw attention to three of the Chamber’s 18 suggestions in particular:
- The introduction of mandatory fingerprinting and photographing of all visitors entering the Cayman Islands at Owen Roberts International and at the Port;
- The introduction of a requirement that all work permit applications must include a DNA sample;
- The introduction of a national identification system that mandates fingerprinting for all forms of identification including passports, work permit identification cards, driver’s licences and students’ Identification cards;
These measures, if adopted, would constitute an invasion into civil liberties hence unknown in a democratic country.
Does anyone really think that visitors to the Cayman Islands would tolerate the humiliation of being fingerprinted and photographed before entering the country?
And how are any of these measures going to be paid for? The cost of implementing any one of them, let alone all three, would be astronomical.
Yes, crime has gotten worse here, but such a draconian reaction makes it seem like innocent women and children are being gunned down in our streets. As bad as it’s gotten, serious and violent crime is still much less prevalent here than in most Caribbean countries, and also less than nearly every city in the United States.
We don’t want to have a cure that’s worse than the disease. Our crime problem needs to be fought the old fashioned way: through an adequately funded, well-trained and well-lead police force backed with tough crime legislation and a community willing to assist the police.
What we don’t need is Big Brother eroding the human dignity of the masses in an effort to control a small portion of the population.
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