CHIEF PROBATION OFFICER, Dorita Lovell, wants communities across the island to help young people in an effort to fight crime, violence and gang-related activities.
Lovell made the point while addressing the congregation at the Calvary Moravian Church on Roebuck Street at the start of activities marking the 65th anniversary of the Probation Department.
She said that the country’s older generation should stop looking down at “young men and women who are sent to the Probation Department for whatever ills or dysfunctions which may be occurring in their lives, because they are products of society”.
“They are members of your families, your uncles, your brothers and sisters and in some cases . . . your parents. Therefore, in order to heal some of the many social problems that you read about, hear about, witness or even experience, it calls for a community effort. It does not start when the person becomes an adult, it starts when that person is a child. It takes a whole community to raise a child, not one or two individuals,” she pointed out.
The probation official, who highlighted that “we are our brothers keepers” stated:
“If you [the older generation] do not allow the youth to know that you care . . . then you yourself will become a victim of their deviance because, they will lash out at you in anger.
“It is a God given duty that we [society] become involved in the communication process of offenders.”
She argued that when someone had done something wrong or fallen afoul of the law, and was given a community sentence, it was the wider community’s duty and responsibility to open up their hearts and remember that they were products of us.
“We need to speak with them in love, not even criticism. And if we criticise, it must be done after we have shown them that we love them. If we do this, I can assure you that this great feeling of insecurity will cease,” she added. (AH)
