RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

An­drea Bharatt’s death has hocked cit­i­zens out of their stu­por. 

Many had be­come im­mune to the dev­as­tat­ing ef­fect of heinous crimes, pre­fer­ring in­stead to see about their safe­ty, rather than be­come their broth­er’s keep­er.

But since Bharatt’s death, an over­whelm­ing surge of sup­port has come from the av­er­age cit­i­zen in the form of protests, vig­ils, march­es and pe­ti­tions.

These events have oc­curred in over 96 com­mu­ni­ties in Trinidad main­ly on the en­tire west­ern side of the is­land, which is dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed as well as ar­eas such as Guayagua­yare, Biche, Ce­dros and To­co.

Now that Bharatt has been laid to rest, ques­tions are be­ing asked as to why T&T seems to be fail­ing at all lev­els of so­ci­ety.

The names of miss­ing women, long for­got­ten, have been brought back to the fore. Cold cas­es have been re­opened by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith.

Fam­i­lies of crime vic­tims have been call­ing for a re­vamp­ing of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, re­form of the Con­sti­tu­tion, en­force­ment of the Death Penal­ty, bet­ter train­ing and re­sources for the Po­lice Ser­vice and so­cial in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes to help cit­i­zens with par­ent­ing, men­tor­ing and men­tal health.

These is­sues are be­ing ex­plored from the per­spec­tives of ex­perts on crim­i­nol­o­gy, clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gy, psy­chi­a­try, his­to­ry and even those moth­ers who have raised crim­i­nals.

Apart from the changes rec­om­mend­ed by cit­i­zen ac­tivists, calls are al­so be­ing made for bet­ter col­lab­o­ra­tion in the strate­gies of crime pre­ven­tion. 

A crim­i­no­log­i­cal per­spec­tive

Lec­tur­er and co­or­di­na­tor of the Crim­i­nol­o­gy Unit at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Dr Randy Seep­er­sad be­lieves an in­ter­ven­tion at the stage of ear­ly child­hood is nec­es­sary if T&T is to rise above the on­go­ing so­ci­etal de­cay. 

Seep­er­sad, who has pub­lished lit­er­a­ture on Gangs in T&T, Youth Vi­o­lence and Delin­quen­cy and Crime in the Caribbean, said the prison sys­tem in T&T was breed­ing crim­i­nals. 

But while these hard­ened crim­i­nals may most like­ly con­tin­ue with their crimes, Dr Seep­er­sad be­lieves the fo­cus should be on cre­at­ing bet­ter fam­i­ly struc­tures, im­proved par­ent­ing and pro­vid­ing so­cio-eco­nom­ic sup­port sys­tems to help chil­dren es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the ear­ly stages of de­vel­op­ment.

“It is wide­ly es­tab­lished in the crim­i­no­log­i­cal lit­er­a­ture that per­sis­tent crim­ino­genic be­hav­iours have its roots in ear­ly child­hood. That is sup­port­ed em­pir­i­cal­ly across the world. What makes or breaks a child is the first two or three years of life. Dur­ing this time we have to en­sure that the child is nur­tured, giv­en prop­er nu­tri­tion, there should be no tox­ins in the en­vi­ron­ment like drugs or cig­a­rettes and most im­por­tant­ly, the child should have a cog­ni­tive­ly en­riched en­vi­ron­ment with pos­i­tive ex­pe­ri­ences” Seep­er­sad said.

He not­ed that a child, who grows up in a dif­fi­cult en­vi­ron­ment, will most like­ly be in­flu­enced by a life of crime.

Seep­er­sad lament­ed that many par­ents are un­aware of the dam­age they do when they fail to spend qual­i­ty time with their chil­dren or when they fail to pro­vide a lov­ing and sup­port­ive home en­vi­ron­ment.

He said pro­vid­ing a cog­ni­tive­ly en­riched en­vi­ron­ment does not mean learn­ing math­e­mat­ics, al­pha­bet and oth­er aca­d­e­m­ic pur­suits at such a ten­der age, but rather it means ex­pos­ing the child to new pos­i­tive ex­pe­ri­ences.

“The un­for­tu­nate thing is we don’t have par­ent ed­u­ca­tion, you have to guess or read books if you’re in­ter­est­ed enough. Par­ent­ing is the most im­por­tant thing that any­body will ever do and you’re nev­er trained in terms of how to do it. The gov­ern­ment cer­tain­ly doesn’t in­ter­vene, very few em­ploy­ers will pro­vide ser­vices that will as­sist par­ents and es­pe­cial­ly so in cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties where there is a greater like­li­hood of vi­o­lence in fam­i­lies,” he said.

Seep­er­sad rec­om­mend­ed spe­cial ini­tia­tives for sin­gle-par­ent fam­i­lies as well as a struc­tured men­tor­ing pro­gramme that will al­low up­right cit­i­zens to help teenagers and oth­er youths in need of guid­ance.

He said re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions should go in­to com­mu­ni­ties and find vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies.

“The ones who go to church, Mosque or Tem­ples are the ones who most like­ly are on the right track but how many of these or­gan­i­sa­tions go house to house in the com­mu­ni­ties and put sys­tems in place to help those in need of spir­i­tu­al guid­ance,” he added.

He al­so said there will al­ways be “life-course-per­sis­tent of­fend­ers” who needs in­car­cer­a­tion. But he said the prison sys­tem need­ed to be re­formed so that those with mi­nor crimes do not mix with hard­ened crim­i­nals.

Ju­ve­nile delin­quents must be giv­en spe­cial care, not­ing that a dif­fi­cult child­hood will in­flu­ence what choic­es they make in life.

A psy­cho­log­i­cal per­spec­tive

Clin­i­cal and com­mu­ni­ty psy­chol­o­gist Dr Pe­ter Weller be­lieves so­cial in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes are need­ed but these must be ev­i­dence-based and co­or­di­nat­ed col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly.

While a lot of work is al­ready be­ing done, Weller be­lieves in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes will be more ef­fec­tive if da­ta is shared.

“Some par­ent­ing strate­gies of the past may not work to­day and par­ents need to know this,” he said. Weller said the stress­es of to­day was mak­ing par­ent­ing even more dif­fi­cult.

“Yes, par­ent­ing is a chal­lenge, there is no one hand­book. Our young peo­ple need at­ten­tion, af­fec­tion, struc­ture and dis­ci­pline es­pe­cial­ly now be­cause of the in­flu­ences of so­cial me­dia, peer pres­sure and pop­u­lar cul­ture. We have to bal­ance that by walk­ing the talk. Its a chal­lenge with so­cial me­dia to cre­ate some kinds of norms so we def­i­nite­ly need more parental train­ing,” he said.

He called al­so for work­place in­ter­ven­tions to help par­ents who are deal­ing with the stress­es of COVID-19.

Weller not­ed that par­ent­ing is dif­fer­ent de­pend­ing on the age of the child. 

“Par­ents are the pri­ma­ry so­cial­i­sa­tion agent and it is all about build­ing healthy re­la­tion­ships to pre­vent vi­o­lence,” he said.

Say­ing there was a need for re­so­cial­i­sa­tion but this must be a co­or­di­nat­ed ap­proach with all so­cial­iza­tion agents.

He al­so called for changes in the jus­tice sys­tem not­ing that po­lice of­fi­cers must keep pace with so­cial norms.

“We have to go back to teach­ing skills build­ing, teach­ing ado­les­cents how to com­mu­ni­cate and how to build peace­ful re­la­tion­ships. This is ur­gent­ly need­ed es­pe­cial­ly with the COVID pan­dem­ic.

While some work has been done with the es­tab­lish­ment of the Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence Unit and the Vic­tim Sup­port Unit, Dr Weller said all so­cial pro­grammes by all in­sti­tu­tions must be col­lab­o­ra­tive and stream­lined.

A his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive

His­to­ry lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh be­lieves the out­pour­ing of sup­port for An­drea Bharatt is not go­ing to bring about so­cial change in peo­ple’s be­hav­iours or at­ti­tudes.

He said so­cial rev­o­lu­tion meant pos­i­tive so­cial change.”

“For many, the term ‘rev­o­lu­tion’ sig­ni­fies change...usu­al­ly pos­i­tive change. We have to re­mem­ber that many of us are good at talk­ing, pon­tif­i­cat­ing to oth­ers and protest­ing but very few of us are brave enough and will­ing to risk our rep­u­ta­tion, jobs or lives to un­der­take a se­ri­ous rev­o­lu­tion for change,” he said. He not­ed that any so­cial rev­o­lu­tion needs prop­er lead­er­ship, dis­ci­pline, pa­tience and core val­ues. The ques­tion is - do we pos­sess these in­gre­di­ents for the recipe of a so­cial rev­o­lu­tion? “ he said.

Par­ents need sup­port

A moth­er, whose son is fac­ing a mur­der charge, told Guardian Me­dia that she recog­nised where she went wrong. 

“When you live in a crime-prone area over­run with gangs, you can­not pro­tect your chil­dren. My son was pres­sured in­to join­ing a gang. He did not want to join but they told him they will kill him. We should have found some­where else to live,” she said.

Her son who is charged with a 2014 mur­der is now lan­guish­ing in prison, de­pen­dent on drugs.

She said there was no pro­gramme avail­able to her to as­sist in deal­ing with the fall­out of crime. Two of her chil­dren were killed and to date, she fears for her life. 

An­oth­er par­ent whose son spent a decade in prison for fraud-re­lat­ed charges said pover­ty played a role in the fail­ures of her son.

“I had to work two jobs and I think I ne­glect­ed my chil­dren. It is my one re­gret,” she said.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh said so­cial­ly when you look at the ori­gins of crime, is­sues such as sin­gle par­ent­ing, child abuse, teenaged preg­nan­cies, pover­ty and oth­er so­cial ills come in­to play. He said a teenaged moth­er must get as­sis­tance from the State while ju­ve­niles should be placed in men­tor­ing pro­grammes. 

Key points raised to stop crim­i­nal­i­ty and vi­o­lence in T&T

1- Re­form of Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Sys­tem to end Court de­lays

2- End of Ad­ver­sar­i­al pol­i­tics through Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form

3- Co­or­di­nat­ed Parental Train­ing pro­grammes

4- Work­place Sup­port sys­tems for Work­ing Par­ents

5- Re­form of the Ed­u­ca­tion Sys­tem 

6- Re­form of Pris­ons/ Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion for Pris­on­ers

7- Co­or­di­nat­ed Men­tor­ing pro­grammes

8- Co­or­di­nat­ed con­flict res­o­lu­tion pro­grammes in crime com­mu­ni­ties

9- Es­tab­lish­ment of Vol­un­teer Home­work Cen­tres in all com­mu­ni­ties.

10- Train­ing for Po­lice in Crime De­tec­tion and Pre­ven­tion

11- Men­tal Health Well­ness Cen­tres in all com­mu­ni­ties