EVERY day, our court system churns out a steady diet of remands, convictions and sentences to an ever-growing army of criminals – petty or hardened.
It’s a frightening prospect for law-abiding citizens, increasingly concerned at the growing threat to their property. Sure, we’re still far safer than in many other countries of the developed world; we do not face the random brutality of physical assault, stabbings and gun crime that have become a terrifying fact of life elsewhere. Still, few have any doubt that Cyprus is not the place it used to be, the happy-go-lucky island where you left your front door open and the car keys on the ignition.
As individuals, we can barricade ourselves behind bolted doors, CCTV and alarm systems. As a society, however, we have a duty to look at the root causes of the problem. A glimpse behind the scenes of every remand and conviction shines a spotlight on a drifting, increasingly broken society of which most of us remain blissfully unaware.
In Cyprus, we see very little poverty. There are no beggars on the streets, no tower block housing estates, no visible urban depravation. Yet almost every court hearing reveals a broken home, a tale of emotional deprivation, a desperate attempt to stay afloat in a society increasingly judged on its material success.
Our social services, our rehabilitation facilities, our prisons, hark back to an era of strong, extended families that provided a padded safety net for anyone at risk of going astray, to an age when there were no hard drugs, when crime was almost non-existent. They simply cannot cope with the new realities.
Urgent reform, an injection of funds and trained personnel are essential if we are to stem the causes of crime. If we fail as a society to recognise this problem, all that is left for us to do is to raise the barricades and pray.
How much of a priority is public health?
JUST before Christmas, President Tassos Papadopoulos spoke of his frustration at the delays in completing the new Nicosia General Hospital. The spiralling costs and ever-extended deadlines, he said, were one of the biggest scandals in Cyprus, and there was a good chance patients would be spending next Christmas in the crumbling old hospital too. Health, he added, was one of his government’s top priorities.
Really? So how does he explain that more than a month has passed since the resignation of his Health Minister, Dina Akkelidou (a resignation that hardly came out of the blue given the criminal proceedings against her), and still we await a replacement?
Health, a top priority, and no minister at the helm for more than a month? You really wouldn’t think the government cared.
