GOVERNMENT INTENDS TO stem the rising tide of crime and deviance and is engaging all the stakeholders in the planning.
Minister of Family, Culture, Sports and Youth Stephen Lashley says the phenomena had been creeping in for a while and would be dealt with “frontally”.
Lashley outlined his ministry’s plans to build a body of information that would inform subsequent strategies employed by Government to counteract the problem, when he addressed a meeting of interest groups at the Garfield Sobers Complex yesterday.
“The Government sees this as an opportunity to engage all stakeholders and to build partnerships to help us to facilitate the design of the kind of solutions and the strategies that are necessary to ensure that we can solve this particular problem,” the minister said.
Participants included Commissioner of Police Darwin Dottin, head of the National Task Force on Crime Prevention, Cheryl Willoughby, Adisa Andwele, representing the peace ambassadors, and representatives of the Probation Department and the Child Care Board.
Lashley said though the discussion had focused on youth crime and deviance, he was concerned that many offenders were also found among adults in the 40s “who continue to offend and present a challenge”.
Yesterday’s meeting was the third workshop of its kind. The first was held last September with stakeholders in the Government sector including the Royal Barbados Police Force, to brainstorm on the issues.
There was another meeting with the National Youth Forum and there will be a fourth with the trade unions and with the business sector which Lashley said had a role to play in mentoring.
