And when the blood of Stephen they witness was shed. I also was standing by and approving and keeping the garments of those who killed him. – Acts 22:20
I AM forced once again to write about the gun violence in Barbados after I read the Monday, August 24 edition of the Daily Nation that two of Barbados’ leading criminal lawyers, Andrew Pilgrim QC and Arthur Holder are reported as saying, under the headline “Lost Boys”, that those who are involved in some of the gun violence are low achievers and should be put into programmes to learn skills.
Those two goodly gentlemen must be taken very seriously, because they represent some of those “boys” in our law courts and must know who they are dealing with.
Pilgrim said what I have been saying for a very long time – that our education system has failed. When I speak about failure, I am not speaking about the teachers, but of the results that we are getting from certain students.
Some of the students will not benefit from a secondary education. What we need a trade school where trouble trees can be sent. It is clear they are lost boys.
Those who are involved in this type of behaviour would have passed through our secondary system. What a waste of time and money.
Some of those same fellows were giving trouble in our schools for years and the principals and teachers were just waiting until they reached the legal age to leave because some of their parents never saw what their children were doing as wrong.
Holder was right when he suggested that increasing fines and jail time was not working. I do not know what will work. We can see it when they are taken to or leaving the court with the thumbs-up and a smile. They just do not care.
We have to try to save those in the cradle and the unborn. Come on, let us stop the game-blaming and do our best to bring the gun violence to an end because the country needs stability and that is what matters.
