Bahamians continue to believe that there is some easy or cost free panacea to resolving issues of crime. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The point, as we have previously insisted, is for government and its social partners to go beyond easy rhetoric and commit themselves to building and perfecting the moralising and civilizing institutions in Bahamian society.
No amount of enraged talk about crime will do anything about reducing or removing this menace from Bahamian society. And, for sure no conference or conclave will ever do more than churn up old emotions and provide a soapbox for some oratorical excess or the other.
When all is said and done, law and order in this country can only be achieved when the bonds of social trust are either introduced or restored to community life in The Bahamas. Conversely, when family life, the school experience and church service are not founded upon trust and mutual respect, people lose their way.
This is the sad fact of life in today’s Bahamas where the struggle for things and the so-called good life now bring with it rape, murder and other abominable crimes against the person. In many instances, human beings are being reduced to a state akin to that of life in a jungle, where the strongest, wiliest or most brutal survive, thanks either to their brawn or criminal cunning. The youngest and the weakest – like Eddison Curtis – are often caught in the crossfire as thugs and terrorists struggle for turf on that cruel terrain.
Successive governments have made a number of promises to tackle crime and the fear it generates in Bahamian society. At one time, one government had the temerity to suggest that it had the wherewithal to ‘break the back of crime’. In more recent times, the Progressive Liberal Party has made the now obligatory promise ‘to effect a dramatic reduction in the overall crime rate’ in The Bahamas.
Regrettably, this rhetoric is today not being matched with performance. Indeed, the nation is now being obliged to face the fact that the rate of hooliganism and other rough tactics seem to be on the increase. As one tragic year ends, the report of mayhem and violence has kept a steady beat.
What is interesting about the outbreak of street level violence and other crimes against persons and property, is that as usual the same voices are being heard proposing the same kind of responses to deal with the matter of crime in The Bahamas.
One of the loudest and most outraged voices now declaiming about crime and its consequences belongs to none other than the Prime Minister, the Hon. Perry G. Christie. On occasion, he has expressed the view that thugs were attempting to lay waste the country.
More recently, he made reference to the conclusion that he had reached that some Bahamians could be described as ‘terrorists.’ While this rhetoric about thugs and terrorists demonstrates the prime minister’s utter abhorrence of criminals who degrade, torture, terrorise and sometimes kill their victims, the public is left with the suspicion that the government does not have a handle on this matter of crime.
We have, in this regard, already expressed the view that there is a need for Bahamians to look more deeply into themselves and their institutions to determine where they are failing. As we have insisted on any number of occasions, when families, schools, churches and other civic institutions fail in their duty, confusion, crime and corruption ensue.
Reasoning thus leads us to the conclusion that the current expression of systems wide failure is the result of neglect and bad decision made many years ago. When a man or woman makes the decision to violate someone in his property or person, that decision is rooted in failures traceable to family, school, church and workplace.
Therefore – and with no fear of sensible contradiction – we are insistent that crime is endemic in The Bahamas and that it will not be rooted out until and unless Bahamian social institutions are reformed. This, of course, is easier said than done.
Progress is hampered because in far too many instances, public attention is narrowly focused on the police in terms of what they are doing or not doing in their work. The truth is surely that the matter of crime in Bahamian society must become of concern to all decent and law abiding citizens.
And, further, since a community’s peace and security does not ‘come cheap’, the public must be made aware of the fact that the inculcation of family values, the establishment of better schools, more socially responsive churches and the building of better civic institutions will all cost money. The bottom line is that they have to be paid for.
Editorial, The Bahama Journal
