FINE MAN IN THE MAKING

Feb 07, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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I know trouble when I see it. And what I saw on our newscasts a few nights ago, will spell trouble in a few years time unless action is taken.
I have always advocated that we need in this country to nip problems in the bud. This is especially so when we are presented with criminal behavior by the young.
When I see kids being contemptuous of their elders, when I see them being presumptuous, I just know trouble lies ahead.
I see such trouble brewing at a school in Vryman’s Erven.  I see a gang of youths, creating mayhem and fear at that school. I see advantage being taken of those who are unable to stand up to the gangs. I see a threat to the young girls at this school.
All of this was shown on television because of the vigilance and courage of a young school teacher who recorded the actions of the gangs, including their threatening behaviour towards the teacher. Young boys were caught on camera going into the school, interfering and molesting females and abusing a teacher who tried to intervene
There has however been concern that despite the glaring evidence, the police is not acting with due dispatch. A report has been made to the police and there is sufficient evidence available for the police to identify the perpetrators involved and to have them arrested and placed before the courts.
I hope this is done because if this gang is allowed to get away with its actions, it will embolden the gang members to become involved in more serious criminal behaviour. And I predict that if they continue to avoid facing the consequences of their actions, it will only be a matter of time before they become hardened criminals.
I call on the Guyana Police Force to save these young men from the ill-begotten future that awaits them. I am confident that some time spent in the New Opportunity Corps will aid in their rehabilitation. If that is too much to ask, then some supervised sentence in which they will be required to clean the school compound to compensate for the damage they have already caused.
I have to ask myself where the parents of these boys are.  Why are they not paying greater attention to where their children are and what they are doing now that they have left school? Why are they not seeking employment for these boys? The parents of these children need to be questioned as to the supervision they are exercising over them.
Too often in this country, I see young boys ganging up doing absolutely nothing useful. Too often parents are allowing their children to roam free. Then when something bad happens, the same parents are the first to claim they did not know how the child ended up that way. The child ended up that way because he was neglected.
There is a truth which we in this country must face, as hard and as difficult as it is to face. And that truth is that while there are exceptions to every rule  and while in Guyana there is usually a great deal of exceptions, the vast majority of those children who are allowed to roam aimlessly and engage in public mischief are from poor families.
Yet whenever some of these children graduate to crime, the defense is always offered that they were driven to crime by poverty. We never hear how they were neglected. I do not see too many rich folks neglecting their kids. I do not see too many rich families allowing their children to roam the streets in the afternoons.
Therefore I say that poor parents must take responsibility for their children and stop making excuses because when things get way out of hand, those excuses really cannot reverse a life gone wrong.
I am disturbed by the stories I hear and the scenes that I see today. I am disturbed whenever I see a groups of boys, as we would say, liming. There is too much to be done, too many books to be read, too much knowledge to be had and too many skills to be learnt for so much this time to be spent aimlessly.
I have heard stories about advantage being taken on younger kids by bigger boys. The smaller kids tell stories of their experience walking home from school and having these bigger boys stop them; take away their pocket money and in some instances rob them of their cell phones.   I see big boys taking away the caps of younger boys and some of them molesting young schoolgirls. Not all of these crimes are reported to the police. But they exist.
And this is why whenever there is evidence to indict the perpetrators of such crimes, action must be taken. I expect, therefore, that the police would take immediate action because I do not like what I see in the conduct of the gang that is creating havoc at the Vyman’s Erven School.
I see trouble in the making. Unless these kids are given counseling, taught to respect authority and walk on the right side of the law, these gangs will produce the next Fine Man.

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