POVERTY is not to blamed for the negative behaviour being portrayed by some young people in society.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the two-day National Consultation on Violence, at the Wildey, Gymnasium, yesterday, Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite made it clear that being poor is no excuse for the type of negative behaviour seen in society today.
“I do not like to hear people say that people are poor and that is why they are behaving a certain way. There is more to it than that. It is a collective in terms of the values. . .,” he said.
The National Consultation was a workshop where people trained in various disciplines met to discuss the way forward in dealing with the increased violent crimes in the country.
According to the Attorney General, while many recommendations have been made by those who attended the Consultation, regarding how Government can tackle the issue, he has tasked the Criminal Justice Research and Planning Unit to look at setting up a working group.
“So we need to extract the best of the recommendations, see how we can tweak some of the programmes, and that will be one of the charges of the working group, and then come back to us. Our vision is that all of you will see the recommendations in their totality, and all of you will then see the recommendations in terms of the ones that we believe are workable and that we will take forward.”
“We also want that once you have seen the recommendations, that any others that you might have, you can feel free to field into us at the Criminal Justice Research Unit so that we can end up with the best available to us ,” he said.
The Attorney General also reminded that the first of a series of town hall meetings, focussed on tackling gun violence in communities, will be held on Wednesday, November 1, 2017, at the Princess Margaret School, at 7 p.m.
Brathwaite said the public consultation will be treated seriously; however, it will not be an avenue for people to complain about members of the Royal Barbados Police Force.
“There is the feeling that the Police are not attacking the big boys. The problem that we are faced with is evidence. We can’t just go and charge someone.”
“These leaders that you are talking about are not the ones that the Police see beside the street smoking weed or the ones with the haversack, when the Police stop them [are caught] with contraband. You can hold the ones that are in front of you. So if you give the evidence and the information, all of this talk about us protecting the leaders and stuff, will disappear,” Brathwaite assured. (AH)