Candidates suggest ways to reduce crime, cut reoffending

Several suggestions were put forward by candidates contesting the St. George North seat on how this island could tackle its high recidivism rates during Thursday night’s televised debate.

Responding to the question of how to drive down the crime rate and deal with the high numbers of former inmates reoffending and returning to prison, Solutions Barbados leader Grenville Phillips II said it was necessary to ensure that inmates were trained in earning money legitimately.

“You train them in how to start businesses. You help them grow and they improve and that is the most effective way because if they are in prison and they are making money, then when they come out they can just continue their business and do not have to get into anything illegal,” he said.

He further explained that the salary that was earned should be divided into thirds and go towards the inmate, the prison and to pay damages to the victim/s of their crime.

President of the Barbados Free Movement, Alex Mitchell claimed it was the failure of this island’s education system that was leading to persons engaging in criminal behaviour and therefore insisted that this be addressed, by ensuring each school is teaching the same topics.

“They need the education to keep them out of prison to begin with… All the books should be the same, so it would not matter if you went to Combermere or any of the so-called fancy large colleges. All the books need to be the same, all the history needs to be the same. We cannot create a criminal class by giving certain groups of people books with less information and then another class with higher information and they are both taking the same test and then say they are not reaching,” he said.

Meanwhile, Barbados Labour Party candidate, Toni Moore suggested that a closer look must be taken when persons were imprisoned to discover the reason behind their criminal acts.

“If there is inequality in education, health, access to the very basics we will find that we are creating classes within our society and that starts aggravating and the question of enfranchisement and empowerment comes into play. Our reform system… must address the core issues that drove people to a point where they committed a particular offence and when we see a situation where so many people are returning to prison, having been there and having served time for previous offences, it is saying something and it is telling us that that citizenship training we are talking about is needed more than ever. It’s not only about academics…we must teach our people how to be tolerant of each other,” she stressed. (JMB)