Happy Easter again! The more I try, the less able I am to get away from the topic of violence. Monday morning of this week I drove by Bandroom Lane only to see the cordoned off murder scene. I had a meeting that same night wherein a discussion was held about what needs to be done, what can be done and what should be done.Too many parents are in denial or are keeping quiet about their children’s illegal activities. In other cases, parents are not seeing the signs early in their kids’ development which suggest that if they continue on their current path they will end up dead, in jail, on drugs, unemployed, left out, or involved in gang/drug/thug life.Then we have to try to fix the current lot of criminals and turn them away from the crimes they continue to commit. More on this after the Top 20.Still at #1 is Hold It Against Me by Brittney Spears. This track is simply catchy, very poppy and liked by many. Immovable at #2 is Memories, by David Guetta featuring Kid Cudi, a bangin’ dance track that is just getting it done. Up to #3 is Who’s that Chick? by David Guetta featuring Rihanna. I’m not sure if people are taking notice, but David Guetta seems to be the guy you want producing your track especially if it’s dance music. His creativity and ability to produce hits and remixes is second to none. Falling to #4 is Aston Martin Music by Rick Ross featuring Drake and Chrisette Michelle. Falling to #5 is Grenade by Bruno Mars.Up to #6 is Moment For Life by Nicki Minaj. Improving to #7 is Higher by Taio Cruz featuring Kylie Minogue and Travie McCoy. Slipping to #8 is Firework by Katy Perry. Advancing to #9 is Rihanna’s current hit, S&M, which is getting huge amounts of air time on radio and in clubs. Tumbling to #10 this week is What’s My Name? by Rihanna featuring Drake.Improving to #11 is Better Than Today by Kylie Minogue. Climbing to #12 is a former essential new tune Born This Way by Lady Gaga. On the way up at #13 is F**k You (Forget You) by Cee Lo Green, a former essential new hit.Improving to #14 is this week is Look At Me Now by Chris Brown featuring L’il Wayne and Busta Rhymes. I gotta give Busta props for the rap performance on this track. Awesome fast rapping. Up to #15 is ET by Katy Perry featuring Kanye West, a former essential selection.Walking, by Mary Mary, DJLT’s favourite track, advances to #16. You simply must hear this hit. Even if you don’t like gospel music this song will make you want to dance, bop and sing along. It’s a banger! Improving to #17 is 6 Foot 7 Foot by L’il Wayne featuring Cory Gunz, a monster rap hit with a big beat.Advancing to #18 is On The Floor by Jennifer Lopez featuring Pitbull. J-Lo was wise to team up with Pitbull, who has a name, a huge following and ensured that her track was successful. When you don’t have a powerful, Jennifer Hudson-type voice, you have to use other tricks, props and collaborations to make your songs successful. But collaborations are what its all about these days.Slipping to #19 is Fall For Your Type by Jamie Fox featuring Drake. Tumbling to #20 is Like A G6 by Far*East Movement Featuring Cataracs & Dev.Now back to this week’s topic what do we do about the violence? We have to start with parents who are in denial. Parents in this Country need training, because it seems that we haven’t learned from previous generations.It seems that most parents under the age of 55 have spent the past 30 years chasing the dollar, whilst our kids either raised themselves or, for whatever reasons, we didn’t spend enough time with them. So we need to re-teach parents how to be effective parents. The other thing we need to do is find a way to cause parents and family members to do the right thing and report family members, friends and neighbours who they know are engaging in unlawful activity.People have a tendency to unfairly criticise the police and say that the police should do this and the police should do that. Community policing is the most effective policing and is what we used to do.Let’s get back to community policing with parish constables who knew the parishes and the people therein well. If we don’t assist the police they will be less effective than if we do help them by providing information on criminal activity. Let’s also adopt a more aggressive, assertive, proactive, decisive and swift response to identifying, finding, arresting and prosecuting criminals, would-be criminals, known drug thugs, gang leaders, etc.Good friends of mine who know much more about policing and corrections than I will ever know insist that statistics show that harsher penalties and extended sentences do not deter criminals from repeating their crimes. However, my knowledgeable friends and those who conducted the research have overlooked the fact that if these persons are incarcerated, it is highly unlikely that they will commit crimes at least whilst they’re in jail!Another option for addressing this violence is to take a firmer stand. A kind of Colin Coxall ‘Operation Cleansweep’; a more draconian approach. Just get the Minister of National Security and the Premier and the Commissioner of Police together for a meeting. Oh, wait, the Premier doesn’t need to include the Minister of National Security! She can just meet with the Commish by herself! I’m intentionally being funny but let’s indulge my sense of humour! In reality she doesn’t need to include the Minister of National Security but it’s nice to do so. We don’t want to get the Minister’s knickers in a twist now do we? We are trying to be a ‘joined-up Government’.Without declaring a state of emergency, perhaps we should draft a bill that gives the police the authority to arrest and detain for an extended period of time (until an investigation is completed and the case concluded) any person they suspect of being engaged in unlawful activity.However, I heard that the problem with Coxall’s plan was that he was getting too close to the people at the top of the drug industry! Hopefully that would not be a deterrent this time in that we would want to get all persons involved in the drug and gang mess from top to bottom.I am concerned at the apparent desensitisation of many of us to the shootings.We are like, “Oh wow. A guy just got shot in the head. Geesh. That’s really sad. Now, what’s for dinner and what’s on TV and what else do I have to do today?” It’s like we’re moving right along as if nothing ever happened!Unfortunately this Easter will be another sombre one with another recent shooting in the headlines and in the air. But hopefully we can stop it all just for a moment, to celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour who came and died so that we might have everlasting life.Hopefully we can all turn away from sin and move to a more Godly life, existence and way of being. Let’s all try to make this one a truly Good Friday and a Happy Easter…. DJLT