[GREETINGS]
I am very pleased that so soon after the 44th Regular Meeting of the CARICOM Conference of Heads of Government, held in The Bahamas in mid-February, deliberated on the matter of Crime as a Public Health concern, this Special Symposium has been convened to address that critical subject. I thank Prime Minister Rowley and the Government and People of Trinidad and Tobago for the trademark Trinbago hospitality which my delegation and I have received.
We must admit that this Conference is timely and I am pleased that the Community has embraced this approach.
I commend Prime Minister Rowley for reviving this initiative. In 2009, the Ambassador of St. Kitts and Nevis to Washington and the OAS, Ambassador Iz-ben C. Williams, whom I note is a presenter at one of our panels, delivered a comprehensive presentation to a Caucus of CARICOM Ministers of Health entitled: Violence Prevention; A CARICOM Public Health Imperative. He addressed the Public Health Considerations of Youth Violence and the need to adopt an integrated multi-sectoral approach to this challenge with leadership from the Health Sector.
Further, a 2017 IADB Study on the crime and violence situation in the region also recommended that approach. The IADB report team stated: “The Caribbean does not have a crime problem; it has a violence problem.” While the Study stated that gangs are greatly responsible for crime and violence in the Caribbean, it went on to say that violence is believed to begin in the home. The authors of the report were surprised by the magnitude of the violence in the region and pointed out that this helped perpetuate the problem. The report asserted that Caribbean governments had not found the right balance between prevention and control of violence and urged them to replicate successful violence prevention programmes from other countries.
Rising Crime Rate
Our own recent experience in Saint Lucia also demands that we quickly explore new approaches to the problem of violent crime in our country. Our homicide rate jumped from a total of 30 in 2016, to 60 in 2017, 74 in 2021, 76 in 2022, and to date 27 for 2023. The latest figure means that we are currently averaging two homicides per week. There must be a halt to this. The majority of these homicides have been firearm-related and have involved young people both as victims and perpetrators. The fact that the majority of these murders are concentrated in one area is of no comfort.
This rising crime rate is occurring in the context of various policies and laws that have been in place to combat violent crime. Our Criminal Code is bolstered by laws such as the Anti-Gang Act, which prohibits gangs and gang-related activity and provides for aggravated circumstances justifying severe sentences in instances where the convicted person is a police officer or a gang leader. The Firearms Act addresses the carrying and use of firearms and ammunition, as well as the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, ammunition, and explosives; and amendments to the Act last year, imposed much stiffer penalties for its contraventions. Critical related legislation, including the Money Laundering (Prevention) Act and the Proceeds of Crime Act, further disincentivize crime by providing for the forfeiture or confiscation of the proceeds of specified crimes.
On March 16, 2023, we passed legislation to extend police powers by the Suppression of Escalated Crime (Police Powers) Act. Of course, we urged the police to observe the human rights of citizens and follow only legal methods.
Mr. Chairman, colleagues, I believe it would be common knowledge to all in this room that in early March this year, Saint Lucia requested the support of the Regional Security System (RSS) to quell an escalating crime situation in a southern town. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Regional Security System [RSS] Member States for quickly responding to our call for assistance. The scale and barbarity of the violence that occurred in that town over one weekend is unparalleled in our country’s history. What is particularly concerning about the situation there is that while the homicides are gang-related, the perpetrators have seemingly targeted family members of their perceived foes, raising their criminality to a new and different level.
This situation calls for more than a law enforcement response but one that is comprehensive and multidimensional, that will seek to find and eradicate the roots of this cancerous violence. But as we all know, Mr. Chairman, violence, particularly organized gang violence, is a disease that is not easily arrested, especially in a reactionary mode and in a scenario where it is aided and abetted by the influx of guns and ammunition from outside of the country, notably from the United States.
We therefore, welcome this Symposium as we in Saint Lucia are in the early stages of implementing social and crime suppression programmes that can provide an avenue for resolution of that situation. My government is convinced that crime must be tackled scientifically and as a public health concern. While we continue to provide unprecedented resources to our police force, it has become clear that only a multi-disciplinary, proactive, and evidence-based approach can bring about a sustainable abatement of crime and anti-social behaviour in our country.
Basket of Initiatives
Mr. Chairman, there is also the crucial matter of diverting our young people away from crime and my Government has put in place a basket of initiatives to drive this.
The first of these is the creation of a Youth Economy which aims at helping our young people to become entrepreneurs and businesspeople. The vehicle for this transformation is an agile, specialized Youth Economy Agency (YEA) which will provide financial and technical assistance to our youth to convert their hobbies into entrepreneurship and skills into businesses.
Related initiatives include the Youth Resilience, Inclusion, and Empowerment (Y-RIE) Programme which will develop the learning output of Saint Lucian youth; prepare them for professional job opportunities; connect them with professional development initiatives; and strengthen the Saint Lucian community and family structures that impact youth development.
The GEPSED Project Generation of Employment and Private Sector Development Programme is a PPP funded by the European Union to address youth unemployment by providing Technical Vocational Education.
There is also the programme entitled “Opportunities to Advance and Support Youth for Success (OASYS)”, which will seek to improve the diversion of youth away from custodial sentences; support evidence-based diagnoses and treatment in rehabilitation and diversion; and facilitate the reintegration of youth into the Saint Lucian community after rehabilitation.
Mr. Chairman, I am also very hopeful that our Symposium will produce a regional plan of action to tackle crime in a proactive and preventive manner.
Public health and public security share similar policy objectives as they both aim to provide the maximum benefit for the most people. In considering the application of the public health approach to crime and violence in our region, there are a number of observations and questions to which we hope the Symposium can provide answers.
At the regional level, I see parallels between the role played by CARPHA in a public health context and IMPACS; therefore I see a reformulated IMPACS that will adapt CARPHA techniques to take the lead in the application of the regional public health approach to the prevention of crime and violence.
A public health approach to public security will require huge investments in capacity building, both in terms of equipment and training of frontline personnel. Ideally, we will need a comprehensive assessment of the training needs for a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to crime prevention and control. We will need a corps of well-trained and resilient counselors, and psychologists in our schools and communities who can handle the emotional stress of working with at-risk children and provide family therapy for young people at risk of gang involvement and exploitation.
This approach will allow the relevant agencies to assess what I call “the epidemiology of crime.” By that I mean, understanding the underlying economic, social, and environmental drivers of crime and risk factors and applying targeted interventions to help divert individuals, families, and communities at high-risk, away from violent crime.
Mr. Chairman, a focus on the family and the community is warranted because these are the incubators of good and bad behaviours and values. So, the family so goes the community. And so, Mr. Chairman, we would need clear and early warning indicators and risk factors of serious violence, that can enable the relevant agencies to act and then assess the effectiveness and impact of their interventions.
Mr. Chairman, over the past two decades, we have seen a steady decline in the traditional structure and function of the average family in our region. The system that allowed parents to earn their living while their children were cared for by immediate and extended family members is no more; thus disrupting the transfer of positive family values. A preventative approach would entail the deployment of multi-disciplinary teams of family practitioners to give sustained moral and emotional support to at-risk families. And while we are at it, Mr. Chairman, we must take an urgent and hard look at our education system to ensure that it is not contributing to the solution rather than to the problem.
Mr. Chairman, I also see benefits from applying the primary health care architecture in our countries to public security with community police stations adopting the preventative culture and approach of community health centers, contributing to research on standard public security data, and feeding intelligence to a central point where it can be analyzed, and recommendations sent up the chain of command for targeted intervention and anti-social behavior hotspots. Of course, Mr. Chairman, this will have to be done securely and confidentially.
While the different national circumstances would dictate how the Public Health Approach may be implemented in each Member State, the securing of the additional financial and other resources to sustain this work will have to be undertaken on a regional basis.
One question we need to answer is: Given the weaknesses in some of our public health systems, can they realistically be incorporated into a public health approach to stopping violent crime?
It is our understanding that both Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica have attempted public health approach models against violent crime. The Cure Violence pilot project was used in Trinidad from 2014 to 2017. An evaluation by Arizona State University found a 45% reduction in violent crime in the service area and this was regarded as providing strong evidence for expanding the method to effectively reduce homicides, woundings, and shootings. In Jamaica, the Jamaica Injury Surveillance system used the approach for injury prevention.
If these models did show promise as indicated by their evaluators why haven’t they been applied in the region? If they have been, why have these countries continued to experience significant rates of homicides?
Mr. Chairman, while I have been referring to gun-related homicides in my remarks, other aspects of violent crime in our region should also be considered. In fact, homicide is just a part of the band of outcomes of violence. One of the most notable for us in CARICOM is domestic abuse. It is well-known that gender-based violence is a problem across the Caribbean. A recent survey in five CARICOM member states revealed that 27-40 percent of women reported to have experienced violence from their partners; and various international studies have shown that there are links between the development of violent traits among youth and their growing up in an environment of domestic abuse.
A 2007 UN and World Bank Study, entitled “Crime, Violence, and Development: Policy Options for the Caribbean”, while lauding the evidence-based system of the Public Health Approach, pointed out one drawback: “The one disadvantage of this approach is that many of its most important interventions—such as programs to reduce unintended pregnancies and to promote early childhood development and parental training—may have payoffs in terms of reduced violence only after some time has passed. “
This means, therefore, that we still have to grapple with strategies to reduce violent crime in the interim, and, consequently, the criminal justice approach must be fortified although Caribbean Governments are said to have an overreliance on it. It should also be pointed out though, that the same Study declared that: “not all public health–inspired interventions have delayed effects: limiting the availability of alcohol and providing recreational and mentoring programs to remain in school, for example, may all produce relatively quick impacts.”
Mr. Chairman, with the adoption of a public health approach to violent crime, what we will be embarking upon is, the creation of a legacy of a Caribbean that is as much a safe and secure place for our children in the future, as it was for us when we were children in the past. We have a responsibility to our people; to provide them with the necessary resources so that they can become wealth creators and custodians of our patrimony. I welcome this symposium and ask that we move swiftly to implement the recommendations which will be put forward here. We cannot afford otherwise.
I thank You!
TIME FOR THE CARICOM NATIONS TO SET ITSELF FREE:
Similac baby’s milk! As Similac is to a baby, so are guns to America, Americans have from the beginning have a love affair with guns, beginning with the Colt 45 which was brandished on every citizen’s hips in the old West and now the bushmaster. One of the major contributing factors to the American economy is the sales of guns, in the beginning, guns were never a problem to Americans, everyone strapped on their hips a gun belt and boast out who could shoot the fastest.
The respect for law and order was carried out by all who carry guns after guns were prohibited from being carried openly, the nation’s love for guns did not diminish, they then carry concealed weapons, and for a while, peace reigned in the heart of America until the gun revolution laws were implemented, mind you that was not to stop the guns factories but to monopolize the sale of guns, restricting the gun flow to industries as they see fit.
Guns are big business to America, heck they lobby continuously about their fifth amendment to carry arms, the nation’s love for their weapons is paramount, you often hear mass killings in different states, and the woe and lamentation last but for a while, and is back to the business at hand, the business of making guns, better and deadlier guns, and you expect help from America! What are you smoking, what America does best is to give promises, promises you want to hear, but American business is their business and no other.
You are asking a wolf to kill its pup, now I know you are dreaming, there is internal conflict every day with the gun situation right here in their back yard, they are not able to fully solve that crisis, and the majority don’t want to take away their guns, and majority rule.
My dear people of the Caribbean, look to a different source of prevention to curb the importation of guns to your Island nation, or your cries definitely will end on America’s deaf ears.
After the colonization of the land belonging to the Indian Nation, America has since then become a melting part of the land, and claim birthright heritage through force, for Americans might make right, if you cannot secure it you had better not have it at all, after the colonization others came ashore by droves, the Spanish, the Germans, the Italian, all nationality answered to the call of give me your tired, etc, making America a land of mix races.
Everyone has a say, and everyone is being heard, or so it seems but the bottom line is who possesses the most resources takes the lead and makes the rules not to be downtrodden by the rest, the gun factories indeed produce guns, however, the manufacturing sales goes a long way branching into different ventures, supporting uncle Sam, its ok if he gets his share and he knows how to get it.
Taxation is the key, any business gun factory or dairy factory that refuses to pay Uncle Sam its cut immediately gets shut down with a levy of gross back taxes, the Caribbean nation has no say in those matters and does not produce anything here in America, therefor their plea for gun trafficking help will be stalemate before it even reaches the powers that be.
Why do you the Caribbean Island involve yourself with any global power seeking to be their watchdog, If you wanna be accepted, of course, they will recruit you only to secure their borders, and to rule over you making you the stepchild of the century, do you have a choice? Why not! You are already more powerful than you think, you possess the best in the hemisphere a sizeable tropical Island, producing all kinds of food for your banquet, no snow or hale, no internal conflicts, and no enemy at the border if you keep your nose clean, sunshine and rain, mountain and valleys, beaches, wild animals roaming freely ready to be roasted. That is as much you can say for the five continents.
The trouble with you Caribbean countries is that you want more of what you cannot have, you want a voice to make decisions on their roster, dream on! you want to be noticed as an equal partner of theirs good luck, not knowing that you have become greedy, wanting to be seen like an equal by them, therefore you borrow from them and have no manner for payback, becoming a puppet on a string, played by everyone, instead of a self-governing nation.