Repeatedly, we keep hearing of stabbings in the country. In the past few months, almost every other week there is a stabbing in one area of the country or the other. The number of lives being lost to stabbings is alarming. What is responsible for this and how can it be stopped? These are questions which we all (as a people) have to confront immediately and seek solutions to.
The economic problems are biting. If people find it difficult to put food on their tables, find it difficult to have access to basic necessities, find it difficult to get medical attention and so on and so forth, they become desperate. This can lead to stress and some form of trauma which can be a cause for violence.
Many young people cannot find jobs despite their best efforts. Some have returned to the country after having left using the back way and are now here, mostly without a job. Some people even though they have jobs; the salary is such that it cannot allow them to live a comfortable and dignified life. Thus, the tendency for some people to get angry and violent is huge.
In order to solve this problem, a multidimensional approach is needed. Firstly, government must seek to resolve the economic difficulties. Plans and programmes must be put in place to ensure that the economy picks up so that salaries can be increased, jobs created and the people have ways and means of improving their lot. In short, government should work towards maintaining economic justice in the country.
Secondly, more efforts are needed from the Gambia Police Force to ensure that their presence is felt more and more everywhere in the country. One thing that the police can do to have an impact on the reduction of crime is to reestablish the community policing that was so effective in fighting crimes in the country. The police should make more efforts in this direction in order to ensure that if crime is not totally eradicated also, it can be reduced drastically.
