By Lesroy W. Williams
Observer Reporter
(Frigate Bay, St. Kitts)- In a speech to the Labour National Conference last weekend, a minister from Dominica told attendees that crime was not related to poverty, but to a variety of factors, including negative cultural influences from North America.
On Sunday, May 18, Senator Charles Savarin of Dominica addressed the 76th Annual Labour National Conference held at the St. Kitts Marriott Resort, Frigate Bay.
“While I am very concerned about the question of employment…I do not share the view that the result of crime is as a result of poverty,” Sen. Savarin said.
Senator Savarin was deputizing for the Honourable Roosevelt Skerritt, Prime Minister of Dominica, who could not make it to be the Guest Speaker because of other engagements.
Senator Savarin, who is the Minister of Utilities, Energy, Ports and Public Service, said that the increase in crime in St. Kitts and Nevis, in Dominica and in the Caribbean at large is a serious cause for concern.
“We were much poorer 10 years ago, we were much poorer 20 years ago, we were very much poorer 30 years ago and we had less crime. Therefore, we have to look deep in the islands to confront that question of crime. We have to look both internally and externally. There are influences that affect us today that we knew nothing about yesterday,” Sen. Savarin
said.
He said that young people today want an easy life and are not prepared to sacrifice and work hard like their parents did. He lamented how the young people in the Caribbean are following some of the negative values from the North American Culture.
“They will dress as they see the people from the prisons in the United States with their trousers beneath their buttocks, with large baggy pants walking the streets. They will see those with gold chains and flashy cars and not look at their fathers who worked very hard before they could buy a vehicle and their mothers who toiled daily to send them to school. They will want cars before they leave school. They will want gold and silver before they have a job,” Sen. Savarin said.
He went on to say that crime is a problem for everyone and not just government.
“All of us as fathers, as mothers, as society, need to confront that problem working with the government to seek the solutions to the problems of youth, the problem of crime and the problem of all antisocial behaviours in our societies,” Sen. Savarin stated
Continuing in the same line of argument as Sen. Savarin, The Honourable Denzil Douglas, Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis and National Political Leader said in his address:
“There is a problem that can undermine the very foundation of our economy, if our society does not continue to combine resources to combat and eradicate it. That problem to which I refer to here is the problem of crime,” the Prime Minister said.
He continued:
“My Government fully understands the multi-dimensional nature of crime and we are therefore poised to combat crime in a variety of ways. In respect to the social and educational dimensions of crime, we have been reducing the percentage of dropouts in our schools from which criminals are quite often recruited. We have enhanced the rehabilitation programs in our prisons. We have sought employment for ex-convicts with the view to ensuring that such ex-convicts abandon the life of crime as they are integrated back into society. We introduced Project Strong to provide help to young people at risk of falling into crime. We are establishing a new co-ed training facility as Harris’ to train and rehabilitate young people in trouble with the Law. We continue to provide enhanced equipment and assistance to our police. We have introduced community policing and frequency of patrols.”
He reiterated what Sen. Savarin said – that fighting crime must adopt a collaborative approach involving every institution in the society.
The Honourable G.A. Dwyer Astaphan, Minister of National Security, in his letter addressed to the 76th Annual Conference said:
“When I came to this job, I found a weighty list of challenges. I have worked diligently, with a lot of help from many well-intentioned persons and institutions, to move us upward in the battle against anti-social behavior and crime. I have gone into ‘gang holes’ and I have met and spoken with every interest group in our society on these matters, trying always to rally the nation around the critical effort to curb negative behavior, and redeem our society from this cancer of crime and violence. Much has been achieved, but much is left to do.”
On the night of May 19, the Federation recorded its ninth homicide for 2008, when 25 year-old Chesil ‘Killis’ Richardson of Conaree Village was gunned down
