SWIMMING UPSTREAM: Youth gunning for trouble

Too many guns in this town! Crime will always be with us, governments and businesses profit from crime. All governments want to have a manageable crime level.  Guns, knives, like cars and fire, on their own are not destructive; the misuse by humans is the problem. Where can these lawless youngsters be getting these guns from? How are these guns getting into Barbados? Are the current penalties draconian enough to deter gun violence?I am very concerned as a parent and a law abiding citizen to hear of the pervasive lawlessness. It’s very saddening to see teenagers who have not lost their mother’s features charged for grievous bodily harm or murder. Who is to blame? Are we to blame collectively as a society?No longer is Sunday school on Sundays mandatory. No longer do we have villages, we now have enclaves disguised as housing estates . . . take a look at Coverley, Silver Hill, Deacons. Where are the parents? Could the church’s silence on societal ills be the problem? The church is supposed to be the moral guardian of our society, but it seems the church emphasis is now on business enterprise.The job of solving crime must not only lie with the Royal Barbados Police Force, but squarely on the shoulder of every citizen. Every citizen should be the eyes and ears of our police. I wish to appeal to every citizen who knows of any illegal activity or illegal firearms to call Crime Stoppers Hotline. The life you save may be your own or a family member.Only recently I saw an adult and a child riding on the wrong side of the road. That caused me to think about when deviancy starts. Thus, I am convinced that it starts from the primary stage and children mirror what adults do. We ignore such infractions, and we then expect teenagers to change from being socialised from having no respect for the rule of law, to a law abiding citizen as an adult.How many of the females or males committing crimes are anything other than functional illiterates? Incarceration must not be the first option, as prison may be the institution which facilitates advanced crime skills. Thus more creative sentencing must be found to rehabilitate deviants from a life of crime.