Gangs, gambling in schools and indiscipline by students are three areas that must be arrested not only by police, but also the wider society.
The suggestion is coming from recently-retired Deputy Commissioner of Police Erwin Boyce, who has labelled gang activity in Barbados as organised crime that must be “attacked” by police.
“It is a tough situation and one thing we have to do is to maintain our presence and don’t be intimidated,” Boyce, who retired on February 11, after 46 years of service, told the Sunday Sun in an interview.
“I am one who believes that whether you call it gangs or whatever, it is organised crime and must be attacked like organised crime.”
He suggested that some adjustments be made to the law in order to free up the hands of police to deal with the young people involved.
“The only fear I have when we start to dissect and call it gangs, is that we have to bear in mind that young persons are protected by certain acts and by certain processes. At one time if you were 15 years, you were a juvenile, but now you are a young person at 18 and there are certain safeguards that protect you in terms of policing responses.
“You must give law enforcement the power to deal with those people who are 18 and under without the necessary constraints that you would have seen if you are dealing with a 15-year-old . . . . I think it is important that we understand that we are going to see younger persons in custody, so there must be a freeing up or an open approach to managing those people while they are in custody,” he added.
He expressed concern about an increase in the level of gambling in schools, pointing to complaints he received from teachers, counsellors and some principals about the prevalence of this activity.
“I think that kind of behaviour is really one that we make enough fuss about because we see ads
that say gamble responsibly and wider society accepts it as a way to get lucky and make money, but we are not recognising that there is a trickle-down effect . . . . Sooner or later it is going to enter match-fixing and we do have the underground economies.”
Boyce commended the Ministry of Education Transformation for its recently-instituted grooming policy.
“Once you get that image of a bad boy and it looks like you are intimidating, then you become a bad boy,” he said, noting it was a matter which the police had discussed some time ago.
“We thought what we were seeing was not the best, because we were actually seeing these same youngsters adopting a style that carried the image of a bad boy.”
He urged the public to assist the police with information wherever possible.
“I believe that information is important and we must dwell on information. If we can get one person from each household to provide us with information, that would be excellent. That would break the back of the situation.”
However, he expressed confidence that the Barbados Police Service was competent to handle the various issues he raised. (GC)
The post Organised crime ‘must be attacked by cops’ appeared first on nationnews.com.