Minister of National Security and Member of Parliament for Freetown, the Hon. Wayne Munroe addressed the rise in murders in the House Of Assembly this week.

Munroe told Parliamentarians, “unless and until as a country we realize and accept what we’ve been saying, the solution to crime is an all of government effort, all of society effort.  And so whenever you try isolate any part of it is when you have the problem.  So when you say what is the church doing, you’re trying to say that let’s blame them.  Chief Justice Hall had a simple saying ‘you either can find time to fix the blame or you can take the time to fix the problem.’”

Year to date crime statistics show that crime is down by 6% overall with decreases in armed robberies, attempted murders and crime against the person.  Murders on the other hand are up by some 13% .  Munroe said, “the 16 year journey to becoming a murderer involves all of us.  It involves us when we see a mother struggling and do nothing about it.  It involves us when we don’t become involved in all of these church programs or other civic programs.  So it really behooves all of us to become a part of the solution.”

Munroe added, “so if one wants to know how you get the numbers down of murders, you get the numbers down by decreasing the number of murderers.   It’s just very simple.”

There have been more than 80 murders since the beginning of the year.