For the second time in less than a week, Democratic Labour Party (DLP) President Dr Ronnie Yearwood has offered to work with Attorney General Dale Marshall on a bi-partisan response to the country’s troubling crime situation.
In an interview with Barbados TODAY on Wednesday, Dr Yearwood said that after hearing the AG’s latest crime plan at a press conference over the weekend, it was evident that he could use some help.
“Looking at what the AG said, I think that he is struggling. I think that he needs help, I think that he is not clear on what needs to happen given this excessive focus on policing,” said Yearwood.
“I’ve extended a hand of bipartisanship to the Attorney General at his last press conference. I understand that he accepted it, but I think those may have been mere words because since then he has not reached out to my office or to me personally to set up our first meeting and see where we are and help us understand what the government’s plan is.
“We want to know how, as the second largest vote-taking party, we can help to widen that net a little bit and bring in other social groups and NGOs and see how we can really do this together as a country,” he added.
As Yearwood spoke with Barbados TODAY, news broke of a shooting at President Kennedy Drive St Michael, adding to a spate of gun play on the island that has left 12 dead in recent weeks.
Over the weekend, the AG warned the country’s criminal elements that they would not be allowed to hold the people of Barbados for ransom.
Backed by Police Commissioner Richard Boyce, Marshall announced plans to reduce the flow of guns from source market countries noting that hundreds of guns had been taken off the streets and intercepted at the ports of entry in recent years.
But the DLP president is not convinced that the AG’s strategy addresses many of the social factors contributing to crime.
“In order for that aspect to succeed and continue to succeed and be sustainable whether in the short, medium or long term, you actually need to address the reasons why someone would take up a gun in the first place,” said Yearwood.
“The reality is that when you look at all the studies and the data, you are not just going to randomly run and take up a gun and go out there and shoot someone. There’s a whole set of push and pull factors often associated with deprivation, poverty, lack of opportunity, poor educational chances, broken families or families who are on the edge and feel shut out from mainstream society,” he added.
According to Dr Yearwood, the AG’s approach need not include just DLP representation, but could also embrace many other well-placed civil society groups and organisations.
“That is where I think the Attorney General is lacking perspective and lacking depth and that is why I propose the bipartisan approach, because I genuinely think that he needs help,” Dr Yearwood declared.
“As a party, we will help and there are loads of other people out there; sociologists, psychologists, youth workers. There are lots of people that he can bring to bear on this situation.
“This does not require some kind of cowboy, tough-man approach, where you say ‘I got this’, because we recognise you don’t have this,” said the DLP president.
Yearwood spoke of growing levels of hopelessness throughout the country due to a lack of opportunity linked to the current economic climate.
He said that the “bipartisan approach” would therefore need to look at providing better opportunities for young men, many of whom, he believes, are the main breadwinners in several households.
Dr Yearwood maintained that his approach to issues like crime would be different from Marshall’s, who, when in Opposition in 2016 called for the resignation of then AG Adriel Brathwaite.
“I don’t wish to perpetuate that kind of politics and that’s why I would hope that he has grown up to recognise that a bipartisan approach is probably the way forward. I can only wish that he has learnt from what he did when he was in opposition,” said the DLP President. (TD)
