On January 17 Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner reiterated a call for the resumption of the death penalty. He was responding to the murders of three fishermen.

These sorts of calls have been made by one government minister or another, responding to the loss of citizens' loved ones due to violent crime. While the emotion behind such statements is understandable, do we really believe that this would solve our problem?

Trinidad and Tobago is suffering from a crime epidemic because of our youth being either nurtured or forced into lives of violent crime, because of family situations, the environment of their communities, inequalities in education and a host of other factors.

Our past and present governments have tried valiantly to solve some of these problems, but haven't quite gotten to the root of why our nation's young people are acting out in these ways and accepting a culture of violence.

But that doesn't mean that we should stop trying. And it definitely doesn't mean that we should resort instead to simply killing off those who do not accept the morals and values that we largely uphold.

Which is better: a criminal justice system that understands the conditions that create a criminal and tries to reform that person or one that simply kills the criminal?

We, as a largely religious society, should all know that even Jesus Christ vouched for the sinner and believed that all could be saved. We often forget, however, that we as a people and as a nation are called to be more like Christ.

This is an opportunity to do just that. And especially when the lives of our young people are at stake, and there are no real measures to address what brings them to the point of committing crimes, we need to be more mindful of how we can create a society of redemption instead of damnation.

This is definitely not to say that crime is not a serious issue requiring a serious solution. But a much more serious solution would have to be putting social programmes in place that deal holistically with the factors influencing crime, creating infrastructure that allows existing programmes to mutually benefit each other, and investing in a rehabilitative prison system that does not just take in our young men and make them worse.

This is why MP Warner's advice is not what is good for the nation.

Trying to save our youth, before and even after they make horrible mistakes, is always the better way.

Brendon O'Brien

via e-mail