A suggestion made by youth leader, Carlos Reid, for the government to establish a special anti-violence unit will not likely come to fruition because other programmes already exist to target such concerns, one Cabinet Minister intimated on Thursday.
Mr. Reid, who heads Youth Against Violence, believes, however, that existing programmes are ineffective.
“We have been in denial for far too long,” he said on Thursday. “I just came from a school this morning where we had to dismantle a feud between 11th and 12th grade students where one of the young boys got stabbed and another got a block dropped on his head.
“We were just down at C.V. Bethel High School dealing with the entire student body that was grieving. What we want is a unit that would actually have presence in the schools on a continued basis.”
His comments came days after Orlander Williamson, 15, was stabbed and killed, allegedly by another student.
On the same day, a student of the Government High School was stabbed during a separate incident on that campus.
Mr. Reid said that these incidents should serve as a wakeup call for all Bahamians.
Minister of Social Services and Community Development Melanie Griffin said on Thursday that despite this latest round of school violence, anti-violence programmes already in place have been effective.
Those programmes include the domestic violence unit and the domestic violence taskforce, she said.
Minister Griffin believes that the real issue is the breakdown of the Bahamian family structure.
“I have been advocating and I’m always saying that our attention needs to be directed at the family,” she said.
“There has been an attack on family values, and an erosion of the family unit in The Bahamas. Once we address the problems facing the family, I think that we will go a long way. What we are witnessing in our society simply mirrors what is occurring in the family.”
Minister Griffin said that social problems like abuse of children, unresolved family issues, and in some cases the lack of a father figure contribute significantly to violence among adolescents.
She said that in many cases authorities are not aware of these existing problems so children are forced to bear the burden of these social downfalls alone.
With the recent stabbings placing renewed focus on the need to address violence among young people, psychiatrist Dr. David Allen, who heads the Urban Renewal Programme, pointed to the need to address other issues.
He said that violent outbursts among adolescents could be associated with survival security issues.
Dr. Allen told The Bahama Journal that the perpetrators of such crimes could be suffering from issues associated with abandonment, rejection, and shame. He further suggested that they might also have anger management problems and lack critical conflict resolution skills.
By: Perez Clarke, The Bahama Journal
