Latest update November 29th, 2024 1:00 AM
Govt seeks to mitigate crime and violence through schools
Government has embarked on a consultative process which will see it developing violence prevention mitigation training, to address violence and crime in Guyana, through the school system.
Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan
The consultation, being held over two days, will conclude today at the Roraima Duke Lodge in Georgetown.
This includes stakeholders from the business community and the Ministries of Public Security and Education.
It is being facilitated by the Caribbean Community, under the Support for Crime and Violence Prevention and Social Development Project, and is a component of the 10th European Development Fund for CARIFORUM Crime and Security Cooperation Programme.
Heading the Consultation process is the Programme Manager of Crime and Security at the CARICOM Secretariat, Sherwin Toyne-Stephenson.
Much of the consultation will be focused on results of recent assessments of risks, threats and protective factors in primary schools and related communities on crime and violence.
Presentations yesterday were scheduled to be made by Coordinator of Health and Human Development at the CARICOM Secretariat, Beverly Reynolds; and Consultant of the Crime and Violence Prevention Project, Glenford Joseph.
Delivering an address during the opening ceremony, Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan, said that at the 28th Intercessional meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government held in February 2017, it was expressed that there is widespread concern about the level of crime in the community.
So the group had resolved to focus on social determinants of crime.
The overarching, broader systemic factors, he said, may not cause crime, but that they create the condition in which organised and individual crimes operate.
He said primary crime prevention assessments identified conditions of the physical and social environment that precipitate criminal acts, with a view of altering the conditions. He added that some risk factors were presented to the 29th Intercessional meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government held in February 20178 in Haiti.
Those include lack of positive activity, negative influences, unemployment, poverty, lack of education, family problems, revenge for crimes committed, and misappropriation of manhood (or what Ramjattan prefers to call self esteem deficit of young males).
With these and other similar statistics which speak to causation, Ramjattan noted that efforts to mitigate the crime issue will focus heavily on prevention.
He was also keen to note that this issue links to the availability and use of illicit drugs in schools.
“The objective of this broader activity, under which the assessments fall, is to build the capacity of school teachers, counsellors, administrators and community leaders for what is increasingly being recognised as the way to go, as evidence-based interventions to address crime and violence in primary schools and in secondary schools and related communities that those schools come from,” Minister Ramjattan said.
He said this will be achieved through data collection, analysis and the design and implementation of relevant prevention and mitigation strategies. This includes appropriate training for youths, in and out of school.
He said that the work being done is “crucial to efforts to achieve the goal of the ideal Caribbean person and importantly, maintaining sustainable development gains in human and social development is achieved in the region.
In this regard, comprehensive policies and programmes are needed to promote pro-social, non-sexual and physically non-violent environments in classrooms and throughout schools.”
The same programme is reportedly being undertaken in other CARICOM states.
Minister Ramjattan also highlighted that Crime and Violence Prevention Training opportunities will also be made available to parents, teachers and community leaders.
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