‘Four main reasons why youth caught in crime, violence web’

With more than six out of ten ex-convicts caught in a criminal justice revolving door, the Government’s top crime researcher and a panel of experts worry that an “unforgiving society”, childhood trauma, drug abuse and mental health issues work to keep young people trapped in a life of crime and violence.

Director of the Criminal Justice Planning and Research Unit, Cheryl Willoughby, expressing concern at the rate at which people who had been jailed end up back behind bars also noted that many employers appear to punish ex-cons after they’ve paid their debt to society – by refusing to hire them.

She said: “The recidivism rate is now over 65%, and in our research, we found that substance abuse problems were among the factors contributing to this, along with mental health issues that they were being treated for in prison but they stopped after they were released.

“Another matter that concerns us is when we look at unemployment of ex-offenders, 70 per cent of employers said they never employed anyone who went to prison, and 50 per cent said they would not employ anyone who had gone to prison.”

Willoughby was among experts appearing in a Barbados Society of Psychologists’ panel discussion on Preventing Youth Violence at the Barbados Public Workers Cooperative Credit Union’s Harcourt Lewis Centre.

Principal Consultant at the Potter Centre, Toney Olton blamed a lack of job opportunities for ex-prisoners on an “unforgiving society”.

He added: “A lot of places are asking for Police Certificates of Character as well, and if the Certificate of Character does not expose the person’s past, someone in the community will call and let the employer know the person has a criminal record, which jeopardises them in the job.”

But the experts agreed there was little attempt to get to the real root of youth violence and crime or seek to understand the psychological issues behind the rising tide of homicides and assaults.

Olton said: “All learning has an emotional basis. In today’s society, the busyness of parents and guardians means that they are spending less time with their children, and have replaced affection and guidance with material things.

“Many of our children also experience abuse and neglect fuelled by frustrated and emotionally unintelligent parents and the fragmentation of the family unit.”

In comparing the violence to a volcano, Olton declared: “Once the lava is spitting, there is a lot going on under the surface; and in this case, the lava we are not seeing are feelings of inadequacy, inferiority, feelings of abandonment, unresourcefulness, sadness, depression, resentment and anger.”

Primary Coordinator at the Substance Abuse Foundation, Allison Gotip, said while the majority of her clients were between the ages of 18 and 35, two children aged 13 and 15 are now on her list. Childhood trauma, such as abuse in all its forms, tended to lead to addiction, violent behaviour or even suicide, she said, expressing concern that children were not allowed to express their emotions freely and there was still too much of a stigma attached to mental health issues in Barbados.

Gotip said: “We must allow our children to have a voice, to start listening to them and have meaningful conversations with them.

“We have also found that when people come into our facilities in the throes of addiction, they have a lot of undiagnosed mental illnesses because there is a stigma to having mental illnesses over here.

“So with all that suppression, along with domestic violence, divorce and separation, a lot of children deal with these, and statistics show that those who have experienced four or more adverse childhood experiences are more likely to commit suicide or suffer with depression.”

Dr Sherri-Ann Catwell, the Senior Registrar at Ward C4 of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, said most of her patients had experienced a traumatic situation in their home.

She told the audience: “A lot of these people came from families with a lot of interpersonal conflict, had bad relationships with peers, were exposed to abuse or drugs, and there was an association between suicide attempts and violent behaviour when exposed to drugs early.”

Some of the solutions the panel identified entailed getting parents and grandparents involved in discussions on why their charges were acting out, since the behaviour was often fuelled by what they experienced in the home, or unresolved trauma the parents or grandparents themselves had never addressed. Olton also suggested a greater emphasis on emotional intelligence, that is, helping people to understand what influenced their behaviour and showing them more appropriate ways to deal with the challenges they faced.