CARICOM Secretary General says youth crime, violence demands regional solution

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – A two-day conference aimed at examining and redefining violence prevention solutions as it relates to youth in the Caribbean began in Guyana on Tuesday with the Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Irwin LaRocque saying it is a regional problem that demands a regional solution.

LaRocque told the conference that crime and security is an issue that is having an impact on all the 15-members of the regional integration grouping.

“It is a regional problem that demands a regional solution.  It not only requires the full co-operation of all our countries but also all the stakeholders within the member states.  The multi-state, multi-sectoral response to this challenge is vital for us to succeed in defeating it,” LaRocque told the opening ceremony.

He said a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2012 Caribbean Human Development Report on Citizen Security noted that crime and violence impose high social, economic and cultural costs.

Crime and violence are development issues and the report recommended that a model of security for the region should be based on a human development approach with citizen security being paramount, he added.

The two-day conference is intended to design transformational youth-centred action to combat crime and violence and address constraints that youth activists face in improving safety outcomes in their communities.

LaRocque told the conference that the youths are the demographic that is most affected by crime and violence and that some of the main findings of recent studies are that the majority of victims, as well as perpetrators of crimes recorded by the police, are young males 18 to 35 years old.

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