Dear Editor,

The crime wave which is now sweeping the country is unbearable. The security minister has given up. He has thrown his hands up in exasperation, seeking divine intervention. The last time I checked all human beings were equipped with a brain, and not as a souvenir. We all, including the security minister should utilise same.

During the election campaign, the minister was beaming with confidence, sounded so competent and came across quite well. This is always the case when seeking power. Having now got power the minister should find innovative ways to deal with the crime problem.

In the last weeks, a spate of robberies, abduction, rape, beheading, and murder has been visited upon the country. The callousness of these crimes is beyond human comprehension: In Trelawny, a four-year-old girl was found mutilated after she went missing. A newborn was retrieved from a pit latrine. An eight-year-old girl was also brutally murdered. A 75-year-old woman was brutally raped, and the list goes on.

We thought we were crime-saturated, but a new low has been reached in crime. Just Thursday last an 83-year-old woman, a newspaper vendor, was almost decapitated by a young man, downtown. It was alleged that the man was of unsound mind. If this is factual, then the problem of the mentally challenged people on the road needs to be given prompt attention (again!). And by this I don’t mean put in a dump truck, bound with rope, and head for a mud lake. If the Government is serious about street people of all categories, they must act now.

From time immemorial “madmen” have been walking the streets of towns and cities of Jamaica. Successive governments have ignored them, not realising or caring of the impending danger. The security forces should be engaged and these people taken from the streets and placed in a place of safety built for the purpose.

All Jamaicans should be catered for and not just one set. The Government should get its act together and stem the maladies and sinful deeds which face the country.

Concerned citizen

St Andrew