Crime is the issue of the year

s Barbadians return to “business as usual” after the fun and frolic of the holiday season, citizens will become more clear-eyed about the reality of the challenges they must confront.

 

The debate continues about what the media should or should not have deemed to be the issue of the year; however, what cannot be denied is the worry that people across all strata have about the crime situation on the island.

 

The Barbados Police Service (TBPS), despite its low manpower and limited resources, has performed creditably, in the circumstances, in their response to most serious crimes.

 

Murders and gun crime, however, have become the bane of their law enforcement duties, as the country crossed the historic figure of 50 murders in a calendar year.

 

It is a threshold that citizens take no pleasure in revealing to others as it signals a battle between good and evil, in a case where evil appears to be achieving the upper hand.

 

Solutions and suggestions, many of them valid, have been offered by various groups and experts as the antidote for what is clearly a problem that is not going away.

 

Minister in the Attorney General’s Office with responsibility for Crime Prevention, Corey Lane was reported in the media wishing and praying for a decline in murder figures. Lane has been given a long rope by the public with which to create and execute some solutions that would make the island a safer place for residents and visitors.

 

Already, the country appears to have recorded its first murder, though it is yet to be officially labelled as such by TBPS, despite the social media frenzy.

 

That aside, there is an acknowledgement that the country is facing a crisis with its young men and boys as the data is presenting the unavoidable truth about teenage boys and too many young men on the island.

 

At a symposium supported by the Caribbean Development Bank and held in the Cayman Islands, experts called for targeted mentorship for boys and encouraged stronger home-school partnerships to address the widening education gap in the Caribbean, where boys are twice as likely as girls to repeat grades or drop out at primary and secondary school.

 

What we are eager to know about the Barbados situation is what developments have come out of the much-touted National Advisory Council on Citizen Security which was established last year by Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

 

Mottley, with significant fanfare, insisted that the body would not be merely another council, but it would ensure there is broad feedback and buy-in into national policies to counter gun and gang violence.

 

“The Government of Barbados has agreed that we will establish immediately, a National Advisory Council on Citizen Security. And this council on citizen security is intended to be able to have the widest possible ownership of the things that we must consider and do in order to be able to ensure that Barbados does not fall down the rabbit hole that, regrettably, other countries have fallen in as a result of the access in particular to assault weapons and automatic weapons,” the country’s leader announced.

 

The council, headed by Professor Velma Newton, with the President of the Senate, Senator Reginald Farley as the deputy, included security experts, business leaders, religious leaders, union officials and youth representatives. A relative of a murder victim was subsequently added to the council along with community activist Winston Iston Bull Branch, who helped to arrange a truce between warring St Michael gangs.

 

It is understandable that these councils and panels will require time, but given the grave situation and widespread worry about murders and other serious crimes, the council should have been in a position to present some update to the public on its work.

 

With statistics showing the average age of murder accused hovering around 18 years old, the urgency of now is real.

 

As the prime minister herself acknowledged in her New Year’s message, incidents such as the Majestic Bar shooting in Nelson Street, The City, in which three people were killed “not only took lives but also eroded the sense of security that Barbadians once cherished”.

 

The focus on crime should not only be at the criminal justice and enforcement levels but include economic democracy and a more equitable spread of the economic pie.