CARICOM and CRIME

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One Caribbean Nation.



 Current chair of the CARICOM, Barbados Prime Minister, Mia Mottley , has called for a regional approach to crime. Mottley was addressing other Caribbean leaders at the Thirty First Inter Sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads, held in Barbados February 18-19 2020.
Once more our penchant for closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, took center stage at the august gathering. While we do not want to negate the efforts by Mottley to breathe new life into the Caribbean community, we would be quite failing in our duty if we refuse to offer serious comment on this issue.
The increase in violent crime in the region is correctly, in some instances, connected to the dangerous drug trade and the equally dangerous , violent nature of the industry. Unfortunately, when the obvious increase in drug use and the breeding of gangs reared their ugly heads in the late 70s, we did not expect them to reach such threatening heights. Individual countries in the region, took comfort by measuring their statistics by comparing them to others. This meant that some countries, that were experiencing rather low crime rates, comforted themselves by the old refrain: It would not happen here.
However while the focus on the drug related crimes was understandable, we warned that all crime should be looked at from a regional perspective since the ease of crime ,especially those connected to the distribution of drugs, being transported from country to country, within the region, was always going to be a significant challenge for law enforcement agencies.
 In many countries, we also witnessed an increase in crime against women, children and the elderly. Over the last forty years a culture of crime evolved. The criminals became more sophisticated and regional law enforcement agencies found themselves unable to radically confront the criminal element.
Unfortunately for many countries, their economic fortunes have been in a state of stagnancy or decline. This has obviously made criminal activity very attractive to our youth. While we certainly will support any regional effort in sharing resources to control and eliminate crime, we hope that this effort will take root immediately and hopefully we can close the stable door before other horses bolt.

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