Another month, another meeting. Caricom’s Council for National Security and Law Enforcement, established only two years ago, has already chalked up seven meetings, the most recent being last week in Georgetown. It is good to have lots of meetings. But, to what end?
All the addresses were correct. Guyana’s Prime Minister Mr Samuel Hinds called on the council to “prevail in overcoming those who are inclined to criminal activities and those who threaten our security.” Deputy Secretary General Ambassador Lolita Applewaithe declared that drugs and crime were stifling growth, undermining human welfare and impeding social development. Assistant Secretary General Dr Edward Greene announced another packed agenda that required decisions on drafting and ratifying important legal frameworks for the implementation of the Advance Passenger Infor-mation System and Advance Cargo Information System, among other things.
The council’s current chairman, Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of National Security Mr Martin Joseph, followed the conference formula by undertaking to consider issues of maritime and airspace cooperation, sharing of assets, intelligence and information, illegal fire arms, and drug trafficking.
This sort of regional talk could go on for years. As time goes by, however, crime at the local level within member states escalates. But why is it that despite scores of conferences throughout Caricom’s thirty-five year existence, crafting a regional security system and implementing local measures that make member states safer, and the region more secure, have eluded Caribbean security bureaucrats?
Part of the problem is that little attention is devoted, and few resources are deployed, to preventing crime. Too much emphasis is still placed on enforcement actions, corrective institutions and the criminal justice system as a whole. Missing from the council’s agenda is a serious crime prevention plan that deals with the deficiencies in education and the absence of opportunities for employment. Ignorance and idleness contribute to the huge number of out-of-school youths who are involved in criminal behaviour throughout the region.
The gravity of the problem was highlighted in a report published in May last year by the World Bank and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) entitled Crime, Violence and Development : Trends, Costs and Policy Options in the Caribbean. It showed that murder rates in the Caribbean were higher than in any other region of the world and that assault rates are significantly above the world average. Youth violence is a particularly serious problem in the region, and youth homicide rates in several countries of the region are significantly above the world average.
There is every good reason for regional governments to agonise over crime and security. But there are better reasons to consider abandoning the time-worn agenda of top-down responses characterised by what the report refers to as an “over-reliance on the criminal justice system to reduce crime in the region.”
Policymakers must stop crime where it starts – among the young who might grow up to be criminal incorrigibles. Governments must address issues of youth violence in schools and depressed communities by investing in programmes that help young people. They can start by improving the physical infrastructure of schools’ recreational assets; keeping schools open after hours and on weekends to offer additional activities and training; introducing policies that keep high-risk youths in secondary schools longer to prevent their dropping out; opening fresh opportunities for employment and, introducing national service schemes with the capacity to train the thousands of potentially idle youths for the world of work and to keep them from a life of crime.
The many meetings of the Council for National Security and Law Enforcement should seek a strategy aimed at re-educating in and out-of-school youths. Prevention is better than cure.
