IN light of the various incidents that have occurred around this island with respect to an increase in crime and violence, particularly those related to the use of guns, there has been increased talk of the need for the Attorney General and those in the judicial system to take a tougher stance on crime.
However, this is not always as simple as it may seem. This point was made by Attorney General and Minister of Home Affairs, Adriel Brathwaite, who delivered remarks at the USAID-sponsored Regional Workshop “CariSECURE: Strengthening Evidence Based Decision Making for Citizen Security in the Caribbean”, yesterday at the Radisson Aquatica Resort.
He said that there is a belief in this country that once someone commits a crime, then he or she should automatically be sent to prison. However, it must be noted that there are other things that can be done to ensure that this person faces justice.
“We also need to find some mechanism to instill to members of our public, what exactly works and why we take certain initiatives that we are taking. In Barbados, we have alluded that once somebody commits a crime, he should be incarcerated and stuff… But we need to be able to demonstrate to our public that in fact that these initiatives that we are taking to move our young people away from crime, does not mean that we are being soft on crime. There is a time and a place for serious punishment.”
The Attorney General stated that incarceration is not always the answer because when you do this, all you have is someone who goes into the prison system with a whole set of problems, comes back out of prison and goes back into their communities with those same set of issues.
Brathwaite added that this is the purpose of this workshop where stakeholders would work on finding the best solutions to decrease the number of young people who get involved in criminal activities.
“But there are also times when interventions, in particular where our youth are involved, where the softer skills are required because to me, and I am sure to many of you, it makes no sense or it makes little sense incarcerating a 19-year-old for example, for five years.
He goes into the prison system with challenges, either low morale, poor education or family difficulties, you know the usual gamut of challenges and he comes back out from prison with the same challenges and goes back into his community with the same challenges and then we question why he ends back up in prison. I want to challenge you colleagues to let us use the best resources that we have available, the best use of the tools that you have, over the next couple of days to ensure that we are better able to respond to save more of our young people.” (PJT)