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Call made for anti-gang programmes in schools
7/29/2010
One of the recommendations coming out of a study done on the emerging critical issues in juvenile justice in Barbados, is suggesting that to curb the problem of gangs in our society, there needs to be a team of persons going around schools teaching children about the dangers of gang involvement.
The study, which was put together by Magistrate Faith Marshall-Harris and Research Assistant Anastasia Bondarenko, looked at 274 cases that came before the District A Juvenile Court between February 2006 and July 2010.
According to Magistrate Marshall-Harris, in many cases the youth that join the gangs join them fairly innocently, thinking that it is just a great new society to be part of, without understanding the possible consequences of their actions.
Her comments came during an open court session at the United Nations House yesterday morning.
Meanwhile, Roger Husbands, Director of Drug Education and Counselling Services (DECS), told those gathered that he supports the recommendation and his organisation is in the process of preparing a similar proposal to take to secondary and primary schools.
“The only issue which is confronting NGOs on a regular basis is the issue of finances. It is a very hard process to filter the information and we don’t have the finances to do that. So if we had any challenges with regard to the recommendation, it would be funding and having appropriate people to go around to give the messages; not watered-down messages, but messages that would touch young people’s hearts in a way that they do understand and not another talk shop,” Husbands said.
The DECS head noted that they too have been seeing an increase in the number of students joining gangs, and he is in agreement with Magistrate Marshall-Harris that something must be done to address it.
“I do believe that it will have some maturity coming to it; if we don’t be careful we will have the same thing as Jamaica. Currently we have a lot of young people who are being supported by drug lords and the Magistrate made a point that there are older men who actually run these gangs,” he revealed.
Husbands said that he only knows of one case where a young person, 16 years of age, is the leader of a gang. In addition, he said that they also have a concern about the influence that deportees can have on the wider society.
“We have to also be careful with deportees as they come back to the nation, who also come back with information on how to start gangs and be a part of gangs, and we found that three different gangs within the nation are run and formulated by deportees,” he lamented. (JRT)
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