More murders and crime were committed under Perry Christie. as prime minister and leader of the Progressive Liberal Party and Ellliston Greenslade, as commissioner of police than any other prime minister and commissioner in the history of the Bahamas. If fact, if you do a tally it may show that more murders were committed under the current commissioner than what occurred under all the o commissions combined since this country gained independence in 1973. Likewise more murders occurred under Progressive Liberal Party rule than what occurred under all the other political parties combined since majority rule. This is not fantasy. These are cold, hard facts. And by the commissioner's own admission there are no phantom killers out there: these are Bahamian sons and daughters killing other sons and daughters of the soil. Forget the talk about prolific offenders. Anyone who commits one murder or even one attempt is one too many. Now is the time to stop rocking the Bahamian public and their visitors and guest to sleep with false hopes and empty promises: this country is a breeding ground for cold blooded, heartless unrelenting killers, and they come from the wombs of helpless unsuspecting 'not my good son ' weeping mothers. Talk alone will not fix this situation and hard, steadfast swift and determined action is long overdue.

Hard and steadfast action is indeed required but that will not come from our inept Minister of National Security. The newspapers are not reporting it but housebreaking and armed robberies has spiked during the last few weeks particularly out west.

I can attest to that. someone broke into my home in December and two others on the same street.

Crime is no where close to being down! Everyone is walking on egg shells not knowing if or when they're going be a target to crime. Now base on their statistics reported crime maybe down and reason for that is people has no more faith in the justice system so instead of reporting to police when they become a victim of crime lots of people just walk the next direction as it never happened, and who want to have any criminal stalking them and sending threats until the case is dropped or scare off the victim. Sad to say but our Bahamas isn't a safe place and criminal are walking around without fear doing what they do best. It's time we the people take back our beloved country only he who loves his home is going to take care and protect their home.

If the commissioner is in denial about school age boys being involved in gangs, or at least associated with them, when several of the murders each year are young teens, 16,17,18 19 year olds, school age boys or boys who recently left school, then we have a serious problem. This is where efforts and energies and resources need to be directed to prevent these young men from coming out of school to become, 'prolific offenders,' hardened, career criminals and yes, murderers. Otherwise expect another year of three digit murders and record crime.

It appears that crimes may not be reported simply because of the seemingly futility of getting justice done quickly given the four escape routes and a friend pointed out of wasting more time just back and forth is not worth it. The four escape routes would not exist or even have to come to the level especially to the level of new Public Defender having to represent if there was common sense or fair play in many govt involved entities like the Bank of the Bahamas if there was some recourse. Years the BOB shares were not actively traded and noone investigated, share prices dropped from some $5 to less than $2 dollars ard no investigations, no Directors to represent the minority shareholers etc. Victims of white collar crimes, fraud are usually broke not able to hire lawyers who in almost all cases point out that in talking to victims would point out that they will not get any future business going up against any Bank. Of course if the lawyer is dropped from one of the Banks as an Approved Lawyer then shortly the other Banks will know it. The Central Bank will tell the victim that they deal with Bank to Bank issues and to get a lawyer. Agencies the victim could go to of course are funded by the govt. It appears that white collar crime is not addressed as sufficiently as protection for the accused murders or shoplifters who steal a can of sardines. An independent Ombudsman should have also been engaged to deal especially with white collar crime and bankers, clerks, white collar criminals should also be addressed and should face jail time just as the common criminal. Given the pressures our Financial Industry faces it appears that noone in our history has yet committed any white collar crime but our jails are filled by common thieves. Bad loans should be investigated as the some 4,000 defaulted mortgages of some almost a billion dollars did not all happen by themselves and where Banks or its officers are found to have done wrong then punishments and jail time should apply like in the US.

Correcting myself in that an eastern European man was charged some time ago with some money laundering, a COB employee was charged with money laundering some figure shy of a million dollars through some 4 local banks however cannot recall whether those bank employees or the Banks involved were ever charged for accepting the funds despite such much published anti money laundering and Compliance regulation by the Banking industry.

Sadly there are well-known Bahamians taking advantage of this fear of crime situation to unjustly enrich their friends and family members seeking to derive great profits from providing neighbourhood security services in areas where they themselves own property or are involved in property development activities. More often than not, opening up or exposing a neighbourhood to such security services results in the opposite effect desired because the security providers themselves (or their family members or close friends), armed with additional information gathered about the neighbourhood's residents, begin to prey on the very people they are supposed to be protecting in an effort to justify their existence and/or make "good easy money" on the side by burglaries and home invasions that would not have otherwise been experienced by the neighbourhood's residents, especially those residents who refuse to ante up the coercive monthly payments demanded of the security service providers. Most Bahamians would be wise to educate themselves on what happened to residents of Blair Estates and many other similar neighbourhoods whose fears were preyed upon by very opportunistic security service providers! There is really no substitute today for neighbours looking out for each other and having a licensed firearm that they know how (and are not afraid) to use when absolutely necessary.

Not just an experience of Blair Estates in days gone by, but also Camperdown, Sans Souci, Winton, Port New Providence, Sandy Port, etc. etc. etc., and even Lyford Cay! Neighbourhoods hiring private security service providers cannot even rely on police certificates produced for each of the security personnel involved because even these certificates are often subject to being fraudulently obtained for the right price!