IN seeking combative measures to deal with the recent crime wave that has affected business establishments, islandwide, the St Lucia Chamber of Commerce elicited discussions with the local police to sort out the matter.
Consequently, the Chamberâs Law and Order Committee convened an urgent meeting with the Royal St. Lucia Police Force [RSLPF] to discuss the recent spate of armed robberies.
Cognizant of the recent crime wave over the last month, on the business community, the Chamber had earlier called for increased police presence in the city and its environs. The chamber also recommended some specific actions by businesses to safeguard their employees and customers.
Executive Director of the Chamber Brian Louisy, said the meeting was fruitful and issues proposed to help deal with the situation.
âOne of the main things coming out was a commitment from the police force to conduct training for employees so that they could better handle situations, and so they can be a little more conscious of crime and they could be more pro-active to avoid some incidents,â Louisy told reporters.
He said the matter also involved devising strategies âthat the business community can use so that they themselves can more effectively protect themselves, as well as, work with the police in this (collaborative) effort.â
Louisy said the chamber is currently working on several other initiatives geared to address members concerns.
âTraining for chamber members âŠso they will be in a position to provide psycho-social support when there is a crisis, be it crime related, natural disasters or what have you,â he disclosed.
The chamber official says this is an initiative that they are working on and within the next month or so, they will be able âto make an announcement on that and invite members of the chamber and even civil society to participate.â
Subsequently, the chamber plans to hold another important meeting, this time with the health authorities concerning the rapid increase in Covid-19 cases.
Prior to this latter meeting, Chair of the Chamberâs Law and Order Committee Irvin Springer said, âThe Law and Order Committee will in the near future bring together the Chief Security Officers of Chamber Member Companies to share best practice and to see how they can work closer together and with the Police to combat this scourge.â
Springer also noted that âWe intend in short order to mount a campaign for members of the Business Community to support the CCTV Surveillance agenda of the RSLPF to broaden the scope of coverage now provided by CCTV cameras in Castries and the rest of the country.â
Meanwhile as the business community and police seek collaborative measures to deal with this most worrisome situation, bandits were again at it on Tuesday.
Reports state that the attempt by two bandits to commit a robbery at Dr. Freezers on High Street, Castries was foiled by the quick work of a security officer from a business house in close proximity.
Eye witnesses report that the masked bandits had entered the fast food restaurant and ice cream parlour when an alert security guard at another business establishment, recognising that something was amiss, discharged several rounds.
It is further reported that upon hearing the sounds of gun fire, the two bandits fled empty handed.
Just last month, bandits robbed the same business place, fleeing with cash within seconds after committing their crime which was recorded on CCTV cameras.
Manager Darren James told reporters that at the time of that incident, two men wearing masks, one of whom was brandishing a firearm, entered the business establishment and held up two employees while demanding cash.
When children are ruling over the economy and wellbeing of the island ,it is time to take a more comprehensive look and survey the deep rooted causes of the problem.
What causes St.Lucian children to steal and kill with impunity?
What entices them to the dark shades of juvenile delinquency?
The answers are, by no means enigmatic. One only needs to survey the conditions present in the home and community: in the school and in the church to find hard nodes of abuse and pain burnt on the psyche of the children.
The home and community
How has parenting changed in a St. Lucia that once prided itself on – mamai bien leve? We were the quintessential model of âit takes a village to raise a childâ
Where did we drop the ball on the children?
Who are the parents and neighbors of the young hoodlums on the streets?
Where is the locus of crime in the community?
How are they accountable for the acts of their juveniles?
The School
How does the school feature in its service to the home and community?
The school must have, as its major objectives its bid to provide the nation with citizens who are able to-
1. Read, write and speak cogently
2. Understand what they read, write
and speak about
3. Explain clearly the contents of
Knowledge
4. Apply and demonstrate their
understanding of the
contents of knowledge
5. Determine the significance of
the contents of knowledge to the
well-being and advancement
In their lives.
It is the prerogative of the school to construct the mental, psychological and social capacity of the student;
align and untangle the conundrums of home and community and set the student at vantage to view the cause and effect of issues that confronts him daily
So that the class of young men and women who fling their caps into the air at graduation face the community with high academic and stable emotional strength ready to perform in any capacity.
The Church
If the church has reneged on its duty to fortify the hearts of the people, then the job of law enforcement is tripled
and more difficult
Our young men and women, today are like sheep scattered on the hills. Every drug dealer, whoremonger, human trafficker devours them
They turn to the church for help and often find, as they say:
Itâs worse inside the church than
In the world
So they back out quickly and fall into the waiting claws of drugs, crime and violence.
Therefore, it is left to the church to ask for the good paths that leads a lost generation to salvation
Any initiative designed to solve the rash of armed robbery among St. Lucian youth must first look inward and expunge thei own culpability for the problem.
Understand well, that it is often the corporate and business moguls who are the heads of the crime rings that form in the wake of their greed ad oppression of the worker.
They are the ones who refuse to raise the minimum wage and pay the worker a decent wage
It is often among the high arbiters of commerce that the machinery of bigotry and discrimination are set in motion to deprive underprivileged people of decent livelihood to keep them shackled to the chains of perpetual slavery.
Is it any wonder that youâve sowed the wind and now you reap the whirlwind ?
Unless the chamber of commerce and all parties – parents, community, , church, business and corporate organizations, law enforcement and other pertinent actuaries) involved in perpetrating this moral, mental, social and psychological scourge that has fallen on the youth of St.Lucia;
Unless all take an honest accounting of each oneâs culpability in the situation and take viable and sincere steps to solve the problem, your sins will continue to procure you these things.