Gail Alexan­der

Cari­com Sec­re­tary-gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett says an ac­tion plan to be im­ple­ment­ed across the re­gion will be com­piled at the end of to­day’s Cari­com Crime Sym­po­sium at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain.

Bar­nett added that the re­gion­al lead­ers owed this to the cit­i­zens of their re­spec­tive coun­tries, since most Cari­com lead­ers spend a lot of mon­ey to fight crime, lim­it­ing their fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions to oth­er im­por­tant na­tion­al goals in the ed­u­ca­tion, health and so­cial ser­vices sec­tors.

“We are in the process of prepar­ing both a de­c­la­ra­tion and an ac­tion plan be­cause it is not on­ly about say­ing what we need to say, it’s about stat­ing how we’re go­ing to ac­tu­al­ly get it done. We are or­gan­is­ing to en­sure we en­list the sup­port, and ex­perts across the re­gion as we pro­ceed for­ward,” Bar­nett said on day one of the sym­po­sium yes­ter­day.

Ear­li­er, Cari­com chair­man Philip Davis, Prime Min­is­ter of The Ba­hamas, in his open­ing ad­dress said the crime prob­lem calls for “all hands on deck.”

“An epi­dem­ic of vi­o­lence grips our re­gion, one that claims lives and gen­er­ates fear and anger,” David said.

“In 2022, Ja­maica had a stag­ger­ing homi­cide rate of 52.9 per 100,000 in­hab­i­tants, Trinidad and To­ba­go had a rate of 39.4 per 100,000, and The Ba­hamas, St Lu­cia and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines all record­ed homi­cide rates above 30 per 100,000. This is over five times the glob­al av­er­age.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the bat­tle as a com­plex one, Davis added, “There’s a tan­gle of so­cial, eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal fac­tors at the heart of this cri­sis. Dur­ing these two days of de­lib­er­a­tion, we must find the re­solve to un­tan­gle these lay­ered is­sues.”

Cit­ing the need for a col­lec­tive re­sponse, Davis added, “Mil­lions of peo­ple through­out the re­gion live in crime hotspots, nev­er know­ing if they will be a vic­tim on any giv­en day. ... Vi­o­lence spreads like a virus, gain­ing mo­men­tum as one vi­o­lent crime begets an­oth­er ... Vi­o­lence is con­ta­gious, and those who map the com­mis­sion of vi­o­lent crimes find that their da­ta mir­rors the spread of in­fec­tious dis­eases with­in a com­mu­ni­ty.”

He added, “Vi­o­lence can strike in waves and grow ex­po­nen­tial­ly. Those who come in close con­tact with vi­o­lence are most like­ly to spread it and most like­ly to fall vic­tim to it.”

Among is­sues, Davis said the guns used in ap­prox­i­mate­ly 70 per cent of vi­o­lent crimes don’t orig­i­nate in Cari­com coun­tries.

“Every gun used to com­mit a crime in the Caribbean is smug­gled in­to our coun­tries. In The Ba­hamas, 98.6 per cent of all re­cov­ered il­le­gal firearms can be traced di­rect­ly to the US. In Haiti, 87.7 per cent of all re­cov­ered firearms can be traced like­wise. In Ja­maica, it amounts to 67 per cent of all re­cov­ered firearms and here in T&T it amounts to 52 per cent.

“We’ve asked the US gov­ern­ment and US-based gun man­u­fac­tur­ers to co­op­er­ate with Cari­com mem­ber states when it comes to iden­ti­fy­ing weapons pur­chased in the US, as a part of a wider ef­fort to hold weapons deal­ers and traf­fick­ers ac­count­able for the many lives lost to gun vi­o­lence each year.

“We must call on our neigh­bours to the north to bet­ter po­lice the traf­fick­ing of guns from the US to the Caribbean.”

Speak­ing on an is­sue which Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley raised re­cent­ly, Davis added, “Last month, The Ba­hamas, along with An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and To­ba­go and Mex­i­co, work­ing along with the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean

Net­work for Hu­man Se­cu­ri­ty, joint­ly filed a brief in the Unit­ed States Court of Ap­peal in sup­port of a $10 bil­lion law­suit to hold US gun man­u­fac­tur­ers li­able for the de­struc­tion Amer­i­can-made guns have caused in our 17 coun­tries.

“It was an ac­tion ini­ti­at­ed by the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment. We in­tend to chal­lenge the laws that pre­vi­ous­ly pro­tect­ed gun man­u­fac­tur­ers from law­suits. We’re send­ing a clear mes­sage to the world that we are very se­ri­ous about fight­ing gun vi­o­lence in all forms and on all fronts, not just the home front.

“The Cari­com Crime and Gun In­tel­li­gence Unit was cre­at­ed to strength­en Caribbean and US col­lab­o­ra­tion in us­ing da­ta and tech­nol­o­gy to in­ter­cept il­le­gal firearms and traf­fick­ers. We must ful­ly lever­age this part­ner­ship, so that those who put guns on our streets are stopped – and brought to jus­tice.”

Davis added, “I’m hope­ful the dis­cus­sions we ini­ti­ate to­day (yes­ter­day) will serve as a launch­ing pad for de­vel­op­ment of im­pact­ful in­ter­ven­tions and so­lu­tions. There are no quick fix­es; yet, we must act quick­ly to save our peo­ple from this epi­dem­ic.”

Need to sup­port young males

Cari­com chair­man Davis al­so urged re­gion­al lead­ers to im­ple­ment more sup­port mech­a­nisms for male youths.

“I know I don’t have to per­suade any of you about the ur­gency of this work. On a typ­i­cal day, some es­ti­mates sug­gest that an av­er­age of 13 young adults be­tween the ages of 16 to 30 lose their lives to vi­o­lent crime in our re­gion," Davis said.

“And there must be more out­reach to – and sup­port for – our at-risk young men. There’s con­sid­er­able re­search sug­gest­ing that a young man who makes it to adult­hood with­out com­mit­ting a crime, is far less like­ly to be­come a crim­i­nal. Giv­en this trend, it is crit­i­cal we pro­vide more sup­port for our boys in their tran­si­tion to man­hood to keep them on a pro­duc­tive and peace­ful path.”

He added, “Our most at-risk and vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions re­quire in­ter­ven­tions to meet them where they are - in their homes, com­mu­ni­ties, church­es and schools - to make a re­al, mean­ing­ful im­pact.The re­cent Carif­ta Games were an ex­cel­lent ex­am­ple of what our young peo­ple can ac­com­plish when giv­en pos­i­tive av­enues for self-ex­plo­ration and achieve­ment.“

He cit­ed the work of renowned Ba­hami­an psy­chi­a­trist Dr David Allen, who con­clud­ed in his re­search that an abused child be­comes a dan­ger­ous adult.

“Ad­dress­ing vi­o­lent crime re­quires us to con­front these ug­ly truths about the harm dam­aged and bro­ken peo­ple can car­ry for­ward, from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion. But we can’t look away. We need to in­ter­rupt these cy­cles of vi­o­lence."

He added, “It is not mere­ly a polic­ing or leg­isla­tive prob­lem. Nor is it sole­ly the do­main of the courts. While bet­ter laws and ex­pand­ed po­lice ca­pac­i­ty are im­por­tant el­e­ments of a suc­cess­ful strat­e­gy, we need all hands on deck: par­ents, so­cial work­ers, ed­u­ca­tors, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion spe­cial­ists, so­cial sci­en­tists, com­mu­ni­ty work­ers and ac­tivists, men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als, re­li­gious lead­ers, and many oth­ers must come to­geth­er to ad­dress this per­va­sive is­sue.”

Cit­ing the im­pact on in­vestor con­fi­dence, Davis said, “If we do not act de­ci­sive­ly, our eco­nom­ic prospects will be fur­ther erod­ed by this on­go­ing wave of vi­o­lence."

He not­ed “a pow­er­ful ex­am­ple of the strength of a unit­ed re­gion” was seen in Oc­to­ber 2022, when 19 Caribbean coun­tries par­tic­i­pat­ed in a joint op­er­a­tion with In­ter­pol in which 350 weapons, 3,300 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, 10 tons of co­caine, and two and a half tons of mar­i­jua­na were in­ter­cept­ed, with 510 ar­rests.

“Such col­lab­o­ra­tive op­er­a­tions must be­come more fre­quent if we want to mean­ing­ful­ly im­pact the flow of il­le­gal drugs and guns across our bor­ders.”