The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Thank you for allowing me to address the letter by Mr Watkins.

First of all I would like to thank you, Mr Watkins, for the great and special service you have given to our country as a police officer.  

I hope by this time that you have been able to read the full crime report that appeared in The Tribune on Monday, April 2, 2012. In reference to your letter, I’d like to address two issues.  

• I agree with you that one of the major root causes of our crime situation is the dethronement of our Christian values. This is outlined in the 4th component of the Chronic Violent Drug Syndrome as the fragmentation of our social cultural ethic, producing a cheapening of life, lack of respect for property, diminished work ethic, lack of civility and  disintegration of family and community. Due to drugs, crime and the economic down turn, Nassau is experiencing a powerful dis-socialisation process. The question for us as a country and as individuals is how do we create a re-socialisation process in our country, especially Nassau? A religious revival could do much to re-establish our country’s Christian values and I pray this will occur.

However, after seeing the initial data of the research, I started a pilot programme called, “The Family Project” that meets every Wednesday afternoon (four to six) in buildings at Calvary Bible Church. Based on a group therapy model, The Family consists of an adult family group of about 50 persons and two teenage family groups of 35 persons. The project aims to enhance resocialisation by spiritual awareness, empathic connection, instillation of hope, stress reduction, anger management, revenge elimination, gratitude,  forgiveness and altruism.  Thus far the testimonial data collected from participants is positive. A group of well known international researchers are in the process of scientifically evaluating the programme and its relevance for wider application.

II. The second part of your letter deals with the issue of foreign police. This is a controversial subject! The report is based on a summary of interviews with different groups of people. Generally speaking 14 per cent wanted no foreign police assistance at all; 44 per cent thought that there was a need for some type of foreign police assistance. The rest were ambivalent and some persons expressed concern that political interference from both parties interferes with the effectiveness of the police. I have no way of validating this observation.

In this age of the globalisation, I believe  a mutual exchange programme with countries that have special expertise in the recovery of guns or arms (eg Israel and Canada) could be helpful to us.  For example five –10 Bahamian police officers would go to Israel and Canada and five –10 of their officers from Israel and Canada would come to work in the Bahamas for a defined period of time to help eliminate the number of guns in our midst. This programme would enhance training, cross fertilisation, informed dialogue and decrease the incestuous nature of law enforcement so common in small countries. This would increase the morale, effectiveness and public accountability of the force.

We have brought in foreigners to help us in construction, medicine, banking, teaching and now we will have foreign observers to observe our electoral process. If our country is under siege by burgeoning violent crimes, should we not do everything possible to make our people safe?

Drastic times require drastic measures. Our choice is brief... if we fail to act, the consequences could be catastrophic!

DAVID F ALLEN

Nassau,

April 3, 2012.