#BTEditorial – Ensuring a peace, and not a ‘piece’ programme

The most recent statement by Commissioner of Police Richard Boyce that the year 2023 has seen a reduction in serious or violent crime as compared to 2022, is most heartening news.

All efforts that lead to less criminality are to be encouraged, particularly in a traditionally peaceful country where Barbadians generally coexist in harmony and tourism is our main ‘bread and butter’.

The fight against crime is led by the hardworking members of the Barbados Police Service. But that battle is not theirs alone to be fought. Civil organisations, community groups and the general public also have a part to play in ensuring that crime can be successfully tackled before it occurs, when it occurs, and after it occurs.

We are all cognisant of the fact that crime cannot and never will be completely eradicated, but collective efforts are sure to bring greater results than isolated crusades.

It is within this context that we focus on the MP for The City Corey Lane, who is also the Minister of State in the Attorney General’s Office with responsibility for crime prevention. Last year, as a response to a proliferation of gun-related woundings and deaths linked to reprisals within the drug trade, Mr Lane was called upon to spearhead a National Peace Project, among other initiatives.

One would have to be completely naïve to believe that one can make a dent in underworld activities without locating oneself in the underworld at some juncture. Wining and dining at dinner tables with the crème de la crème of Barbadian society will hardly suffice to tackle rampant criminality.

There was a necessity, and still is, to get into the trenches where criminal elements reside and, where possible, try to provide alternatives to anti-social behaviour and bring troubled but reachable souls back into legitimate, mainstream, nation-building activities.  

If the efforts of the National Peace Project have contributed in any way to a reduction in violent crime in Barbados, and if this decrease continues, then Mr Lane and all those under his charge contributing to the effort must be congratulated.

However, if this effort involves courting or seeking assistance from those involved in crime or with criminal histories, then the measures will attract controversy at some point in time. And where state funds are being utilised in the initiatives, controversy will become even more commonplace.

It is within this circumstance that accountability of taxpayers’ monies becomes paramount and that the “peace” in the initiative does not become a “piece” of largesse for those involved in the process.

We cast no aspersions on anyone involved in the programme. However, we suggest that given the reality of monies being paid monthly to some of those involved in the process, as well as the recidivism of persons in the programme with criminal histories, that greater attention not only be paid to accountability but that the dispersion of public funds, in particular, be made just that – public.

Mr Lane has always made himself available to the media – a quality not always shared by some of his colleagues – and perhaps during his frequent interactions with journalists, a breakdown of how funds allocated to the National Peace Project should be offered.

Of course, this is not a call to pry into or reveal the specific identities of who gets what. But a breakdown of the direction of public funds and the purpose for these allocations will go a long way towards quieting the whispers of uninformed citizens whose daily commentaries on social media and elsewhere can only serve to undermine the efforts of the National Peace Project.

There are many unemployed and underemployed law-abiding citizens who have taken umbrage at the idea of persons in the underworld being paid to intervene or assist in the effort to reduce violent criminality in Barbados.

Their perspectives might be cast in black and white but, nonetheless, their concerns have some legitimacy in these difficult economic times, especially where the perception might go forth that persons are being paid not to get involved in crime when they should just be locked up and the keys thrown away. We do not share that simplistic assessment.

As we prepare to usher in a new year, let’s hope that the efforts of the Barbados Police Service continue to be successful. We also hope that initiatives such as the National Peace Project and any other measures that are implemented to make Barbados a safer place are controversy-free, transparent, and that they occasion the results for which they were introduced. As Mr Lane and successive Commissioners of Police have often said, fighting crime in Barbados is everybody’s business.