Yvonne Ba­boolal

Gang lead­ers use mon­ey from gov­ern­ment con­tracts to pro­vide food for mem­bers of their com­mu­ni­ty and buy ex­pen­sive tick­ets for them for con­certs with Ja­maican dance­hall artistes.Some of that mon­ey will al­so be used to buy guns, or rent them.There are oth­er gang lead­ers who use al­most all the mon­ey to strength­en their fi­nan­cial em­pire and the com­mu­ni­ty sees very lit­tle of it.

This and oth­er rev­e­la­tions came from Fr Clyde Har­vey, who works with young peo­ple in at-risk com­mu­ni­ties.He said he has nev­er been in favour of giv­ing of gov­ern­ment con­tracts to gang lead­ers, or even the in­tro­duc­tion of state re­lief pro­grammes like Cepep and URP in crime hot spots.Har­vey was re­spond­ing to ques­tions from the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day on whether gov­ern­ment con­tracts giv­en to gang lead­ers in­creased or de­creased crime."It's not as sim­ple as yes or no...There are dif­fer­ent kinds of gang lead­ers," he said.

"There's the kind of gang leader who will take the mon­ey and use it to set up a pro­gramme to ben­e­fit mem­bers of his gang and peo­ple from the wider com­mu­ni­ty. For in­stance, he might spon­sor a small-goal com­pe­ti­tion. Some time ago, a gang leader, now de­ceased, said it cost him $30,000 to keep his com­mu­ni­ty to­geth­er. He ad­mit­ted he had to find that mon­ey."Har­vey al­so said, "Some of the mon­ey is used to buy or rent guns."

Asked if gang lead­ers did not al­ready have enough guns, he replied, "Talk to any gang per­son and they nev­er have enough guns."Asked if the gang­sters seek to get guns that are more so­phis­ti­cat­ed than those of the po­lice, Har­vey said, "Once peo­ple be­gin to have am­bi­tion in the world of crime, they want to be the best. This is al­so true in oth­er coun­tries in the world. Look at the Tal­iban."

Har­vey said when young peo­ple are told to put their guns away they make it very clear the po­lice can­not pro­tect them.He re­ferred to the re­cent killing of a 30-year-old woman who wit­nessed the mur­der of a Diego Mar­tin PH taxi dri­ver in Laven­tille."That young woman's death on­ly serves to re­in­force that be­lief," he said.Har­vey crit­i­cised politi­cians who said they nev­er dealt with gang lead­ers, claim­ing, "They all did it. It is some­what hyp­o­crit­i­cal for any­body who has been in pol­i­tics to say he has nev­er dealt with gang lead­ers."

Asked why he felt politi­cians gave gang lead­ers con­tracts, Har­vey said, "Be­cause they have no re­al so­lu­tion. They feel they have no oth­er way for­ward, and be­lieve at least the con­tracts will pro­vide an anaes­thet­ic, will qui­et things down."On whether young peo­ple get in­volved in crime be­cause of rank, he said, "It still re­mains a mat­ter of rank."When you have noth­ing else, the school sys­tem fails you and you don't see a fu­ture, the gangs pro­vide fam­i­ly and em­pow­er­ment."

Har­vey said make-work pro­grammes like Cepep may be used by mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty for good, for a while, un­til they be­come taint­ed."The po­lit­i­cal will is al­ways about five years and my pow­er, not the in­ter­est of the peo­ple."He said the so­lu­tion to crime in de­pressed com­mu­ni­ties lay in the schools and com­mu­ni­ties.

An­oth­er view:

The Love Un­til Foun­da­tion, based in Up­per Church Street, Laven­tille, was more de­cid­ed on the is­sue of giv­ing gov­ern­ment con­tracts to gang lead­ers.Chair­man Bri­an Jones was clear."Giv­ing state con­tracts to gang lead­ers on­ly in­creas­es crime...It does not al­le­vi­ate it," he said."Con­tracts en­hance the turf war, which could es­ca­late in­to mur­der. There is in­for­ma­tion to show this hap­pens."

He felt gov­ern­ment con­tracts should not even be giv­en to gang lead­ers, known by the com­mu­ni­ty and, some­times, the po­lice, but against whom there is no ev­i­dence to take to court."The law says a man is in­no­cent un­til proven guilty but peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty know they are gang lead­ers," Jones said."I find it dif­fi­cult to ac­cept the State would as­sist known crim­i­nals."Jones said some­times the same gang lead­ers are very in­volved in help­ing their com­mu­ni­ties and this can be­come a dilem­ma.

"That's the chal­lenge the coun­try faces," he said.The Love Un­til Foun­da­tion has been work­ing for eight years in at-risk com­mu­ni­ties, teach­ing young peo­ple life skills and how to get gain­ful em­ploy­ment."We try to as­sist them in de­vel­op­ing a sense of self and do lit­er­a­cy pro­grammes where nec­es­sary," Jones said.