Increasing Incidence of Crime in the Streets of Male’: What Can We Make Out of It?

Everyday, our newspapers are unfolding stories which demonstrate immense psychological trauma and physical injury caused to innocent people by those who had attempted to harm or kill them.

A father and son walking out of a mosque is stabbed, a couple going on a ride is stopped and the wife gang raped, a youth walking down the street is knifed to death, businessmen attacked right before your eyes and robbed of hundreds of thousands of Rufiyaa. …this list appears to be endless and growing.
So how can we explain what is really going on? Who knows!
It will be very easy for me or for any one else to point a finger at an individual, an institution or the government and say, well you all have failed, and miserably at that.
It will be very easy for me to say, a particular political party is responsible for our dissent into chaos and crime. Even easier would be to say, all the heroin addicts are to be blamed for what is going on.
However, I would rather say a combination of factors may be contributing towards the increased incidence of crime in our country.

Unfortunately, even though it is two years or more since MaldivesResearch (http://www.maldivesresearch.org/policy/research.html) proposed to do a research on the issue of gang violence in the Maldives, the importance of doing such a research as a priority has not been acknowledged (either due to lack of funds to invest in a research of this nature...or due to lack of will to investigate the issue). Had the research been carried out when it was proposed and discussed (in my presence with the past and the present presidents of the Maldives on two separate occasions) by now we would probably be better equipped to comment on what is really going on, and there fore be ready with a concrete and holistic plan of action to address this distressing issue.
Instead, we chose to run amok in the wild trying to find a solution to the issue based on subjective understandings and interpretations some individuals may have regarding the problem and on how we ought to deal with them.

Meanwhile, precious life is lost in the precious time spent on mismanaging the issue, bungling it up just as we did with the policies regarding substance abuse management in the country. It does not matter that several hundreds of Rufiyaa may be wasted on investigating single cases, while we fail to look at the whole picture.
When the police shows to the public, weapons they have confiscated in raids from houses in Male’ such as swords, releases persons with potential training in terrorist activities into the streets of Male’, re-arrest those who are serving life sentences from scenes of crime, one has to wonder, what is really going on here? Who is putting all the pieces of this together? Would it all be ever put together?

Are we just going to be mute observers when our fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, sisters and brothers are killed or injured right before our eyes?
Or are we as concerned citizens going to raise our level of responsibility and do something to protect our society?
Why should we tolerate such a level of violence and crime as we are observing today? Should not the policy makers be looking at the loopholes in the legislature that is making violent criminals escape the legal system? Should not the police be making great effort to unmask those who may be behind organized crime that may be occurring in the country? Should not the family members be doing something more at a preventive level to stop their children from chosing the path of crime? Should we not be looking at why we may be afraid of diving deeper into the evils in our society? Are we afraid to be knifed to death if we raise our voices against those who are slowly destroying our society?
Justice has to be done…I cannot but imagine at this moment what must have gone through the 15 year old boys mind and heart when he and his father were mercilessly knifed nor what that husband had gone through when his wife was gang raped...right before his eyes...............!