Males between the ages of 12 and 17 are believed to be responsible for more than half of the home invasions reported in southeastern communities of New Providence so far for this year, Chief Superintendent James Carey told reporters on Tuesday.
“The number of kids who are responsible for these break-ins is too high,” Chief Superintendent Carey said during a press conference at police headquarters on East Street North.
“It means that they are not being supervised, not going to school, or if they are going to school, they are leaving school to commit crimes,” he said. “So the supervision of the kids has to be an integrated and elaborate approach. They have to be supervised in school and they have to be supervised at home.”
According to police, of the 31 persons arrested for breaking and entering homes in the southeastern communities of New Providence this year, 12 were adults and 19 juveniles.
“I want to get across to you that we are disturbed by the number of juveniles [who] have been involved in committing those acts. It is unacceptable. We have to do something about it,” Chief Superintendent Carey said.
“We are not worried at this point about the penalties. We need to look at ways to try and disrupt and prevent that behaviour because it is not fun and games to break into people’s houses and steal things that you wish to have.”
During the first quarter of last year, 60 house break-ins were recorded for the Southern District of New Providence, but according to Detective Inspector Edward Demeritte, crime manager for the southeastern division, in first quarter of 2006, the number has more than doubled.
“There is an alarming number of house break-ins that occurred for the first quarter of the year when compared to the year 2005,” Inspector Demeritte said.
“We have some 134 breakings recorded compared to -last year. As a result of this, we have analyzed the data and we have identified that most of these break-ins happened during the course of the day when most of the residents are either at school or at work.”
Inspector Demeritte also said that the culprits are stealing items like CD players, laptop computers, DVD players, jewelry, computer games, and other miscellaneous items.
“We have put together a joint effort of uniformed and plain clothes officers to concentrate on crime in this area,” Inspector Demeritte said.
Police officials said they intend to develop programmes that would help discourage young people from becoming criminals.
Inspector Walter Evans, police press liaison officer, said that juveniles are also reportedly involving themselves in other more serious criminal activities.
“Tourism officers joined by Nassau Street Police Station officers were on patrol in the Prepall Tract area when they saw a group of men who upon seeing the police fled,” said Inspector Evans, providing the details on a recent incident.
“Two of the young men [juveniles] assisted in the investigation which led to a bushy section in the Prepall Tract area.”
Inspector Evans said that several bags containing items like cameras, a laptop computer, hair supplies, CDs, DVDs watches and jewelry, all believed to be stolen, were discovered.
“Police had received reports of houses being broken into throughout New Providence, namely Perpall Tract, Nassau Street, Chippingham, Elizabeth Estates, Carmichael Road, West Bay Street and Farrington Road areas,” Inspector Evans said.
“It is believed that these men were a part of a group of culprits stealing items from homes since March 31st.”
According Inspector Evans, police are investigating an incident in which four juveniles are being questioned for allegedly having in their possession a .32 revolver.
They are also investigating the recent stabbing of a young man in the back by another juvenile, near the Bahamas Baptist Convention Centre on Blue Hill Road.
In the meantime police officials are encouraging parents to monitor their children, and are also appealing to communities to organize crime watch groups.
Assistant Superintendent Gabrielle Pratt in particular urged residents of Garden Hills, Malcolm Allotment, Bamboo Town, South Beach, East Street South and Carmichael Road to form such groups.
“What we would like to see is more individuals (coming forward) because it takes more than two or three persons to [make] a crime watch group be effective,” ASP Pratt said.
By: Royanne Forbes-Darville, The Bahama Journal
