The Democratic Labour Party (DLP) wants the government’s proposed anti-gang legislation strengthened to better target criminal networks, gang financing and youth recruitment.
The Criminal Gangs (Prevention and Control) Bill, which has been tabled but not yet debated in Parliament, seeks to prevent and control criminal gangs and gang-related activities.
Corey Greenidge, the DLP’s shadow attorney general and criminal justice minister, told reporters while the party supports the proposed legislation and any measures aimed at reducing crime, there are several areas they believe should be strengthened
Among the strengths identified, Greenidge said the bill adequately recognises gangs as organised criminal structures rather than simply focusing on individual offenders.
“The bill recognises gangs as organised criminal structures, so it moves from simply being able to prosecute individual offenders and recognise that you can target gang leaders, recruiters, financiers of gangs, harbours and facilitators of gangs and persons even concealing gang activity,” he said.
He also welcomed provisions aimed at preventing the recruitment of minors into crime.
“It is strong on protection against child recruitment. We see that a lot of the offenders and a lot of the perpetrators of crime in Barbados now are 14-year-olds, fifteen-year-olds, 16-year-olds. The bill is very harsh and very targeted towards combating the recruitment of children, adolescents, young men in our society, and we support this initiative.”
Greenidge further praised the legislation’s witness anonymity and protection provisions, especially when coupled with existing criminal procedure laws.
“The framework is very strong on protecting witnesses within the prosecution of gangs, and we know that a lot of the times within our neighborhoods people are afraid to give the police information because of fear of retaliation, fear that their families will be retaliated against, and the bill strongly addresses this fear.”
He also commended what he described as the bill’s “modern evidentiary approach”, explaining that authorities would not necessarily need formal gang names, colours or insignia to prosecute offenders.
“You don’t necessarily have to prove gang affiliations through signs or insignia, you don’t have to have formal gang names, insignia or hierarchy, but just the collaboration of the activity in criminal activity does constitute a gang.”
Despite those strengths, Greenidge argued that the proposed legislation remains too heavily focused on enforcement and punishment.
The attorney said while the bill is strong on arrests, detention and imprisonment, it lacks sufficient emphasis on prevention, rehabilitation, intelligence coordination, youth intervention and long-term gang suppression.
“It needs to go further in that it needs to be a broader strategic structure in which you can actually dismantle the gang networks in Barbados and go further towards dismantling it from the top all the way down,” he explained.
Greenidge outlined three key areas where the DLP believes improvements should be made.
The first concerns the definition of a gang within the legislation.
“As the legislation is written, the definition or the constitution of a gang requires five or more persons. In our research, we looked at similar legislation across the Caribbean, specifically Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica and we compared those pieces of legislation and in Jamaica the threshold is two persons. In Trinidad, the threshold is three persons. We are of the opinion and we are encouraging the government to reduce the threshold to three persons.”
The second recommendation focuses on targeting the financing and organisational structure of criminal enterprises.
Greenidge argued that many young offenders do not have the resources to purchase guns or drugs on their own, suggesting that financiers and organisers are operating behind the scenes.
“The issue therefore is that the proposed gang bill does not sufficiently integrate gang enforcement with the financial disruption framework in a direct and operational way. Modern crime is fundamentally driven by money, and the strongest anti-gang models internationally focus not only on imprisoning the gang members, but on economically dismantling criminal organizations.”
The legislation should include stronger provisions to freeze bank accounts, trace gang assets, confiscate vehicles and property, and target suspicious financial activity and front businesses, he said.
“It means that the legislation must be able to freeze bank accounts. The legislation must have tracing gang assets mechanisms within the legislation, confiscation of vehicles and property. Disrupting suspicious financial flows, targeting criminal front businesses, and collapsing of economic foundations of the gang operations.”
Greenidge also called for mandatory financial investigations to accompany gang investigations.
“Any mandatory financial investigations alongside the gang investigations. It is not strong on unexplained wealth provisions linked to gang activity. What we’re asking is that part of the gang legislation has to be ahead of the game, as it were.”
He further recommended the creation of dedicated gang asset tracing systems and stronger coordination between law enforcement agencies and the Financial Intelligence Unit.
“There must be enterprise dismantling provisions, strong civil disruption orders, and mandatory coordination between police investigations and the financial intelligence unit.”
The DLP spokesperson also underscored the need for prevention and rehabilitation programmes to be built into the legislation, including gang exit programmes, youth diversion initiatives and community support systems.
“If young people are already recruited in organised violence, then the state has already failed somewhere upstream, either within our education system, either at the social intervention, whether that is our social and community groups or churches, or whether we have failed in terms of opportunity for community engagement.”
“So a sustainable anti-gang strategy must therefore include not just punishment, but there must be prevention and reintegration of these young persons into society.”
Greenidge also pointed to programmes and legislations that have already come on stream and the lack of a report to determine the success of them.
“We want to introduce a statutory review mechanism requiring the legislation to be reviewed after three years with measurable reporting on convictions, acquittals, asset seizures, and overall crime reduction outcomes.”
(LG)
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