By John Denny
Observer Reporter
(Charlestown, Nevis) – A new report says that “although crime on Nevis has caused great alarm throughout the island it is still within manageable proportions and recommends that certain broad-based initiatives are implemented as a matter of urgency.”
A year after the Nevis Community Crime Initiative held a symposium addressing crime issues on Nevis, a panel of initiative stakeholders held a press conference on June 25 to answer questions about their recently released report.
The symposium and the initiative were the result of concerned Nevisians coming together in response to some high profile crimes in the early part of 2007 against prominent business members of the community and well known citizens.
Police being under-resourced, absent fathers and lack of discipline in schools were some of the main theories the report gave for the rise in crime.
“We have had good support from the police,” said panel member Stephen Walwyn. “The support from the (Nevis Island Administration) has been a little less warm, but the federal government has given us overwhelming response.”
Another panel member, Lornette Swanston, said the criminal problem Nevis is facing is starting in the schools.
“Our young people are looking for attention,” said Mrs. Swanston. “With parents working so much, young people are often left on their own. It leads to them being defiant and having no respect. We need to band together and claim a better sense of community. Instead of us looking at the youths and trying to figure out what is wrong with them, we need to be looking at ourselves. The kids are looking at us and reflecting our actions. They seem frustrated and very angry and they lack the ability to resolve conflict.”
By joining as a community and by communicating with family and neighbors we can start fixing the problem, Mrs. Swanston said.
Panel member Dan McMullen has lived on Nevis since 2000. In that time, he has seen the island change.
“Some of the changes have been subtle and some have been not so subtle,” said Mr. McMullen. “We started the initiative because in my experience, if you wait for government to step in you’ll die waiting. What Nevis needs is strong positive male role models. Homes and families have just disintegrated. These young boys think they are men, but they don’t know what it means to be men because they have never been shown. People are scared of these young boys. What we need is for the men of this community to stand up to this handful of misguided youths.”
There was a suggestion by one of the press in attendance that the symposium list of stakeholders did not truly represent Nevisians nor grass roots because they were prominent or well known.
“You don’t have to be poor to be grass roots,” said McMullen. “Someone that works two or three jobs can’t afford to take the time to work on something like this.”
The following is the “Executive Summary” from the NCCI report:
Based on the assumption that there is a direct link between tourism and crime, which makes the situation of security on Nevis an urgent and top priority concern both for the Government and all of its citizens, this report attempts to express that sense of immediacy in its thrust and to underscore the fact that we must act NOW. There is little doubt that Nevis has a crime problem! Historical ambience, a quiet pace, stunning vistas and people with friendly charm make Nevis one of the most sought after tourist destinations in the Caribbean and even the world. Relative to a vast percentage of the other competing tourist attractions, Nevis is definitely one of the safest places to visit. The situation of crime however has shown disturbing trends despite the positive effort of the Police to successfully bring down the numbers to more “manageable” levels. Entirely too many properties have been broken into, businesses held up and persons robbed. The murder rate appears to be on the increase. Associated gang violence and activities are sharply on the increase. Traffic accident fatalities show an unprecedented increase. While police statistics reveal marginal success in detection rates of crimes, those crimes that go undetected create feelings of heightened anxiety and insecurity in a small community.
This Report is the result of a community initiative which began with a Crime Symposium held in the first half of 2007. It represents only a part of an overall effort by the community to combat crime. In this endeavor the community assumes both leadership and responsibility. This responsibility relates not only to the problem but more importantly, to charting a course for its resolution. The Report, while robust in its reach, is not the be all and end all however. It is a starting point from which on-going consultations, collective thought and further explorations should be encouraged and facilitated.
This report seeks to provide a broad, non-partisan (presumptuously bi-partisan) community effort to identify, analyze as well as arrest the mounting problem of crime on Nevis. The effort looks squarely at the problem, purporting to offer an honest and objective assessment of the challenges to a strong and safe society faced by the Nevis community in 2008, laying blame nowhere but insisting that every key stakeholder (Police, the Nevis Island Administration, the Federal Government and the Nevis Community) fully accepts and is poised and ready to perform their respective roles in what is a shared responsibility for its resolution.
This report first provides a backdrop that not only looks at the social influences that impact the development of crime but also comments on the broader social context in which crime on Nevis exists and is perpetuated. Finally, it represents the collective voice of thirty (37) Nevisian stakeholders who came together at the Four Seasons on the 26th June, 2007 and formulated a list of the challenges with crime on the Island as well as proposed strategies to address them.
While the issue of crime is one that can be easily politicized and frankly often is, the stakeholders who issue this report are not intending to draw any conclusions on whether either political party on the Island of Nevis has in the past or is doing in the present a better or worse job of tackling crime. What they seek to do however is to issue a clarion call to both parties to equally and collectively address it. Moreover, although some of the crimes are committed by persons from St. Kitts, this paper only focuses on crime on Nevis and not the Federation of St .Kitts and Nevis.
While there are many strategies and recommendations classified under a range of area headings in the body of the Report, aimed at finding a solution to combating a growing crime problem on the Island of Nevis, the following five points highlight key avenues for intervention. They are:
-Government (NIA) making budgetary allocations greater than before to provide resources necessary to shore up security
-Police to reach out to community and engender trust and respect by doing what is necessary to build relationships
-Training of police officers (in the areas of gangs & community relations)
-Anti-gang unit in the force, specially trained-A government backed task force from the community that serves as a nexus between government, the police and the community to assist with police oversight, information gathering, providing needed resources, etc.
The Report concludes that although crime on Nevis has caused great alarm throughout the island it is still within manageable proportions and recommends that certain broad-based initiatives are implemented as a matter of urgency. Fighting crime must involve all of the identified key stakeholders in Nevis, which each playing its own critical role in the process, working as a well oiled piece of machinery if the initiatives recommended in the Report are to be effective.
