Juvenile delinquency cries out for urgent attention

Mar 01, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,
If Rubington and Weinberg’s definition of a social problem being “an alleged situation that is incompatible with the values of a significant number of people who agree that action is needed to alter the situation”, then we as a nation do have a social problem of juvenile delinquency on our hands.

The majority of us cannot countenance children being robbed of a formal education because they are selling on the streets, playing video games, riding the buses, or just ‘hanging out’- with or without school uniforms – during school hours. The sad thing is that there are many adults who condone this illegitimate behaviour.
Let me say from the outset that I wish to commend the Welfare Officers of the Ministry of Education for their valiant efforts in this fight, despite the limited resources at their disposal, for the future of our nation’s sons and daughters.

The case is that in several communities across the country it has been noticed that there is a significant increase in activities by juveniles in the informal economy.
This increase has been attributed to attempts to ease the negative impact of the national economic crisis faced by many families. The children are “hustling to make a dollar” because, as one mother reasoned: “empty bag can’t stand up”.

Some people even proffer that the reason for such a situation in certain communities is as a result of social exclusion that the residents face. Theoretically speaking, according to one source, social exclusion exists “when individuals or areas suffer from a combination of linked problems such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, bad health and family breakdown.”
If this claim of marginalisation and social exclusion is true, then it needs to be addressed and remedied forthwith.

However, without a doubt, public policy must be implemented and/or enforced as a matter of urgency in order to address the problem of juvenile delinquency in Guyana. Dearlove defines public policy as “a pattern of resources committed by government which has an effect on those outside government”.
To begin with, the Schools Welfare Department of the Ministry of Education needs to be further resourced and strengthened, qualitatively and quantitatively, in order to effectively address this problem.

Other agencies – governmental and non-governmental – need to join the fight to help stem this tide before we are faced with greater numbers of social ills such as teenage pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, child-criminals, child labour, human trafficking, sexual promiscuity, rape, drugs, and general moral degradation in society. Every responsible Guyanese needs to speak out against juvenile delinquency in our society.

There is enough justification for intervention by the state. After all, it has a moral duty to see people educated and to alleviate their poverty situation. It is a fact that absenteeism has an overall effect on the country’s performance and the achieving of targets such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). We therefore need to implore upon parents to fulfil the need to send their children to school regularly as a moral duty and a legal responsibility. If parents persist in this failure then the truancy laws should be enforced and they should be prosecuted. We also need to find some strategy to minimise/eliminate child labour while at the same time maintaining an economic base for the parents.
Education is a vehicle to get out of poverty. Our young Guyanese brothers and sisters must seek to ride that vehicle – not the minibuses.
Desmond Rogers

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