Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Kirk Humphrey has suggested that bad parenting and the erosion of family values are at the core of the recent spike in gun crime.
And he has suggested that is where the focus of national conversation on the issue should begin.
“I feel that the first thing that we have to do in this country now is to have a serious conversation around crime and violence, but recognising at its core it’s a question of values, and why it is that this country has lost its values, and who is responsible fundamentally and essentially for restoring those values” he said at the Barbados Labour Party’s Christ Church East branch meeting on Sunday.
“Why is it that we are not having a conversation with families and communities about these things? …. Why [do] mothers feel that they are doing themselves and their children a favour when they hide their guns, when they hide the people who are running from the police? …. [These are] the same mothers who would cry for their children when they are either dead in the road or the ones being charged for . . . someone else’s child being dead in the road.”
Speaking candidly on the issue, Humphrey said many younger parents were allowing their children to become materialistic and confrontational in their households and communities, rather than teaching them positive values.
The Minister argued that, in some cases, this had a negative knock-on effect, with many of these children eventually turning to a life of crime.
“We are teaching our children the wrong things, and then we wonder why so many of our children are before the court, why are so many of our children before the social services agencies… why many are on the streets struggling with drugs, mental illnesses caused by drug psychosis.
“Why are all of these things happening? Because we are making the wrong choices for our children. I am not saying the Government does not have a role to play but all of us have a role to play, too,” he insisted.
Humphrey added that it was a dangerous precedent to make crime a political issue, as he insisted that it is a societal one.
“People would want to make it a political event because it favours the opposition…. They say ‘go and curse the BLP’, but I don’t know that I see BLPs chasing DLPs [Democratic Labour Party supporters] down in the street. I don’t know that these men are arguing over Mia and whoever it is on the other side. I do not see anybody discussing political things when they are killing one another,” he argued.
“That we are choosing to make this a political event will be to the detriment of this country.”
