Crime, education and lack of jobs trouble youth

Published in the Jamaica Gleaner: Thursday | August 9, 2007

Mark Beckford, Staff Reporter

Crime and violence, unemployment and educational challenges were the recurring concerns expressed by a group of 14 inner-city youths at a Gleaner Editors' Forum held yesterday at the offices of the Dispute Resolution Foundation on South Camp Road, Kingston.

The group, which comprised young people from marginalised communities in the Corporate Area and St. Catherine, repeatedly stressed that these issues should be addressed by the political party which forms the next government.

Some of the participants at the forum will be eligible to vote for the first time at the August 27 general election. Several of them served notice that their vote should not be taken for granted as they might stay away.

One young man, obviously still affected by a recent traumatic experience, said crime was having a crippling effect on him and, by extension, Jamaica.

"There was one incident where my neighbour, she and her child were burntin her house," he said. "This kinda cause an effect on me, cause the same week was my CXCs (Caribbean Examination Council) and it had an effect on me and you can't stay out a road, you haffi come in before 5 o'clock before shot a fire and I'm scared, very scared."

Spiralling out of control

Jamaica's crime rate has been spiralling out of control for years with more than 500 murders being committed for this year already.

One participant said tha policemen were posted in his community in the aftermath of a recent outbreak of violence, they did not make much of a difference.

Another participant questioned the professionalism of some members of the police force, asserting that many were corrupt and were known to collaborate with criminals, thereby deepening the community's sense of insecurity.

Against that background, several participants in the forum suggested that the next government should institute an independent body devoid of policemen and women, where their complaints could be heard and taken seriously.

"When you confront the police there is no means for us as citizens with the police force," one male participant remonstrated. "If we make a report, the police harass us and then we must go to the same police who harass us and make a complaint to them. I don't feel I should go to the same person who abuse me."

Education was one of the resounding responses given by them as one of the ways to fight crime and violence.

"Some of these youths who are doing it, I think that some of them never get the real schooling so they could build more training institutes where they could get more training," one young man suggested.

Access to education and the price of it were also major points of concern for the young participants.

Education has been a major issue in the current campaign, with the governing People's National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) presenting competing funding proposals.

The PNP has said it will continue its cost sharing programme, but will pay for students who can't afford to, while the JLP has proposed free tuition.

Unemployment was also cited as a major hindrance to youth advancement.

"If youths in Jamaica have something to do they won't hang around on the corners and want to rob people and shoot people," said one female panellist. "The government itself needs to talk to our youths and see where they are heading to."

Another young woman said: "With employment you have less crime, some crimes are committed because some people want to go out there and commit crime, but when you look at it most of it is because of their background and because of the fact that they have nothing else to do and nothing else to survive."