‘Parents need to be held responsible’

WESTERN BUREAU:

ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER of Police Clifford Chambers, the commanding officer for the Area One police division, is making a fresh appeal for all stakeholders, particularly parents, to join hands with the police in preventing young people from descending into a life of crime and antisocial behaviour.

Chambers made the call while speaking to The Gleaner following Wednesday’s fifth staging of the Police Civilian Oversight Authority’s [PCOA] Transforming Our Police Service awards programme, held at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in Rose Hall, St James.

“What we realise is that there are certain latitudes which are being given to these young persons from a parental standpoint, which we have to address. Parents need to be held responsible for some of the things they allow their kids to do without hindrance, for instance a child having a motorcycle, which obviously they cannot get on their own, parents see them leaving on it, and I think you have a responsibility there,” said Chambers.

His comment follows Tuesday’s incident in Petersfield, Westmoreland, where 14-year-old Zackeal McIntyre and 16-year-old Ajani Robinson died after the motorcycle they were riding on collided with an oncoming motor car.

The boys, both of whom resided in Darliston in the parish and attended Petersfield High School, were riding the motorcycle to school at the time, despite it being against the institution’s rules, when they reportedly lost control of the vehicle while manoeuvring a corner and slammed into the other vehicle.

In a Gleaner interview, the boys’ parents said they had warned their children against riding a motorcycle and admitted that they did not know that it was being done.

Chambers also noted that while the police have various anti-crime initiatives on hand to deter young people from falling into criminality, it cannot be left up to the police alone.

“The age cohort of 15 to 25 years is a major cohort that is giving us a lot problems with crime, and that is one of the cohorts that we are targetting. We have the school resource officers who go around and meet with the deans of discipline, do their lectures and presentations and try to guide them [students] along a particular path; we have our community safety and security branch who go out in the community and have widely publicised stakeholders’ meetings and engage the public and try to get to these youths,” Chambers explained.

“We also have other initiatives, like in Westmoreland we have the ProjectSTAR, and even in Meggy Top, St James there is an active police engagement in the community itself. We are doing what we can with the resources that we have, but other stakeholders really need to step up, get onboard, and help us as we try to save our youth from going down a life of crime and violence,” Chambers added.

He was referencing the Social Transformation and Renewal Project, a five-year initiative launched by the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica in collaboration with the Jamaica Constabulary Force [JCF] to bring about societal transformation through targeted interventions in 20 under-resourced residential areas of Jamaica. The initiative was launched in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland in November 2022 to tackle crime in the parish capital.

In the meantime, Pastor Glen Samuels, a member of the PCOA board, told Wednesday’s awards function that young people are increasingly responsible for several of the social ills now affecting Jamaica, as well as other jurisdictions.

“Male or female, our nation is facing some challenges from the younger generation. Most of the social ills, most of the crime, most of the road deaths, most of the antisocial stuff with which the JCF must deal, comes from those between ages 15 and 24,” said Samuels, who is also president of the West Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

“If you look at the crime stats in countries like Trinidad and Jamaica, if you go to places in England where there is a large gathering of West Indian persons, and you go to the USA where you have a large gathering, the fact remains the same that most of the challenges come from those of that young age,” Samuels added.

Last November, Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson revealled that children between ages 15 and 17 were implicated in 875 major crimes committed in Jamaica between 2019 and 2022.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com