Be better role models for our youth, DCP Grant urges officers

WESTERN BUREAU:

Deputy Commissioner of Police Novelette Grant, who will shortly be demitting office, is calling for adults to become better role models for young people as a way of keeping them from falling prey to criminal behaviour, which could transform them into perpetrators of violence.

Grant made her appeal while addressing the third day of the recent Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police 33rd annual conference at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in St James.

"I am going to stand here unashamedly and call for us to really start paying attention to how we treat our youth," said Grant. "They want our time, they want our attention, they want for us to listen and hear their side of the story, and they want us to be role models to them. If we empowered youth and provided them with guidance and with role models, we could reduce the conveyor belt of school-based gangs that morph into street gangs. Students have told us that they are being recruited by adult males to join street gangs; and within the schools themselves, they copy some of the street gangs that they see."

Grant gave several statistics which indicated that a significant number of young people have fallen victims to crime or went missing between 2013 and 2017, highlighting their at-risk status.

"From 2012 to 2017, 370 of our youth between 12 and 18 years were murdered. Of those arrested for serious crimes, 349 were arrested for murder; 338 of these were males, and 11 were females," said Grant. "Between the years 2013 to 2017, of the 9,138 children who went missing from home between the ages of 11 to 17 years, 1,974 of those were males and 7,164 were females."

She added, "Peer pressure accounted for 35 per cent of our children running away from home, 24 per cent left home because of sexual activity, and 22 per cent left home because of conflict with parents or guardians."

Recent reports have pointed to an alarming trend of teenagers being actively involved in criminal activities. The number includes 58 teens who were arrested for murder last year, 78 for shooting, and nine girls being found with illegal firearms.

C.T.