My brother’s keeper

Having a bad economy is in itself already a terrible state to be in. Lost jobs, lost productivity, the day-to-day scramble to put food on the table, and the general air of pessimism make for a dreadful combination that is not only enervating but is also highly infectious.

Worse, a bad economy also results in a spike in crime, particularly robbery, theft, and burglary, as well as drug use. The crime level of a specific place is always directly proportional to the current state of its economy, so booming economies usually have low crime rates, while slumping economies have runaway figures for both petty and major crimes. What is particularly troublesome is that robberies and burglaries are what you might call “gateway felonies”—they inevitably lead to bigger crimes and, more often than not, end in murder.

That is what happened last week at Marianas High School. Security guard Efren Ballesteros was killed during a burglary and his tragic widow was left with the job of raising their two children, including one who just turned 5 months. That this monstrous crime was followed by the stabbing attack on a Good Samaritan in Chalan Kanoa and the case of a hotel employee who was robbed of cash by a customer only bolsters growing fears that crime is escalating on the islands.

The Department of Public Safety, to be sure, did a fine job of apprehending the three suspects in the MHS murder and, although this is not meant to indict the three, the fact that police were immediately able to show some progress in their investigation of this heinous crime speaks well of the department and the capability of its people. Both suspects in the stabbing attack and the hotel robbery have also been apprehended, putting these cases on track to being immediately resolved.

These, however, do nothing to ease of the minds of the other victims of crimes that are being committed throughout the island. Robberies and burglaries have been occurring left and right on Saipan, yet the police seem to be keeping these cases under their hats. We know of at least five burglaries and one mugging incident that have happened in the last four weeks, one in broad daylight, and we have yet to hear of a suspect or suspects being arrested for this spate of crimes.

Until such time that we manage to dig ourselves out from the current economic hole we’re in, it seems almost a given that we will be seeing more and more of these incidents and, unless we remain vigilant, the ripples will sooner or later touch and engulf the island’s tourists, putting into serious question Saipan’s reputation as a safe destination for our visitors. We cannot and must not let that happen. The fragile state of our one-legged economy cannot afford anything that could affect our community’s ability to survive.

As such, we cannot just rely on the police to keep us safe. DPS is too underfunded and undermanned to be able to guarantee the security and safety of everyone on the island. The department is already spread out too thin and they can only do so much with the meager resources they have. The community must take it upon itself to ensure its safety and protection. We cannot remain insular. We have to learn how to watch out for one another and be our brother’s keeper—a return to traditional ways when neighbors were still friends, and friends were still family. [B][I](Saipan Tribune)[/I][/B]