Understanding the criminal mind, and a Ministry of Parenting

Jul 21, 2019 Countryman

By Dennis Nichols

The use of illegal and harmful substances by children is a global problem. Not very long ago it was a minor one in this country. Now ‘we are losing the battle’ against illegal drug use. In our schools!
We have been told that there is a growing presence of ‘Ecstasy’ the psychoactive, so-called date rape drug, among schoolchildren. Soon, those in school will be out of school. Some will become model citizens; some will ‘become’ criminals. It’s a fact of life.
Increasingly it seems, gratuitous violence, among other kinds, is being perpetrated by youngsters, and many of these acts may be linked to the use of illegal substances. Some of them are relatively new to Guyana, like Ecstasy and Crystal Meth.
One of the most salient questions is who should be blamed. Parents of course. Teachers? ‘Society’? Bad company? Bad genes? All, some, or none of the above? Most of us have to be tired of, and frustrated with, the stock responses that the relevant authorities give us. They aren’t helping much. The juggernaut (or should we say druggernaut) is moving relentlessly forward, and our children are in its path.
My son made an offhand suggestion once , and I chuckled at the notion. But then I began to wonder if he was on to something, or at least leaning in the direction of a way to handle a national problem with a national solution. He opined, “Maybe we need a Ministry of Parenting.”
So I did a search to see if there is such a Ministry in any country. There isn’t. What I did come across was what I consider a well-written, thought-provoking article, actually an excerpt from a book entitled ‘Understanding the Criminal Mind’ by Adam McIntyre, the Jamaican-born Programme Coordinator for the Department of Community Rehabilitation in the Cayman Islands’ prisons. Its thrust is close enough, and could be adapted as part of its mandate if such a department existed.
This is what McIntyre wrote, and it has almost nothing to do with drug use or the culpability of children. “Our children’s wayward drift into delinquency and criminal behaviour is often directly linked to our own shortcomings and breach of trust as caregivers.
Many of the youth that cram our prisons today are really serving time for parents who are either negligent and irresponsible or ignorant and indifferent. These parents may not be considered criminals in the strict legal sense of the word, but their cumulative action is a heinous offence with long-term and often irreversibly deleterious effect on the youth and the community as a whole.
The grim consequences are manifested in juvenile delinquency, high school dropouts, incarceration and, finally, and most troubling, unproductive citizens and social misfits who create a daunting social and economic cost that society has to bear.
Take, for example, the negligent, irresponsible father who does not support his children emotionally and financially. Though he is not a criminal by law, in reality, has he not committed robbery and aggravated assault by cheating his helpless children of a prosperous future? Aren’t our teachers, pastors and counsellors often guilty of theft and abuse of office for stealing the hopes and dreams of countless children by their failure to provide the youth with the skills that they need to cope in a changing world?
And don’t we regularly sustain grievous bodily harm from politicians whose policies batter and bruise us, leaving us vulnerable to pernicious economic afflictions? Some of our leaders have plunged us into deep financial carnage while recklessly driving the economy under the intoxicating influence of power.
Our army of discontented, disillusioned youth is partly the result of dereliction of parental duty. If parents love their children and try to raise them right, why do they fail so often to do a good job at it?
Most parents believe that their years of experience and traditional role of authority qualify them as experts at parenting craft. To make matters worse, parents do not like to be told how to raise their children, but, if we want to reduce crime, we have to change this mindset, admit that there is a lot we can learn from others, including our children.
Someone said that it is impossible to teach someone something that they think they already know. Perhaps as a community, we need to talk about raising our parents. At times, it is necessary, but difficult, for parents to admit that they are novices at their job of parenthood but if they knew that the innocent, newborn would in a few years become an incorrigible criminal, what would they have done differently?
Should parents expect better from their children if they do not give them the coping skills to survive in a tough world?
… Granted, it is difficult for some parents to give quality care to their children while undergoing financial hardships, domestic difficulties and work-related stress. While it may be unreasonable to expect parents to devote all of their time to their children while neglecting their own personal commitments, it is equally unreasonable for them to cheat their children while pursuing their passions, because the increasingly complex emotional needs of children cannot be postponed until parents’ personal problems dissipate or until other social obligations are met.
Our worse transgression as parents is our inability to think critically and to be able to calculate the effect of our actions on the welfare of our children. British psychiatrist and prison doctor, Theodore Dalrymple, who has interviewed more than 5,000 inmates, warns that as a society we become “the godparent, the midwife of brutality” when we abandon logic in favour of sentimentality.
Perhaps as a society we should be talking about raising parents instead of raising children.
In the sixties at our preeminent high school in the capital city, some boys smoked cigarettes. The evidence was there, but the culprits weren’t. I was one. By the age of thirteen I was experimenting with smokes during lunch break, mostly in the relative security of the Legionnaires’ building on what was then Kelly Dam, now Carifesta Avenue.
I suffered from horribly low self-esteem, worsened by intense anxiety, but blunted by the camaraderie of my drinking friends. At 18, I lost both my parents, and by age 20, teetered on the brink of delinquency. But there were surrogate parents, including a sister and a neighbour, and I pulled through.
Some youths are not so fortunate. Many have or had parents who themselves were youths when their children were born, ignorant of some of the basic elements of child-rearing. Does society/government owe them some form of ministry? We know the answer.