Dr Bernard Nottage
By SANCHESKA BROWN
Tribune Staff Reporter
sbrown@tribunemedia.net
STUDENTS with disciplinary problems will have to spend a night at the Central Detective Unit and visit Her Majesty’s Prison as a part of the government’s new “shock treatment package”.
National Security Minister Dr Bernard Nottage, made the announcement in the Cabinet Office on the anniversary of government’s second year in office. He said the new initiative is a part of the government’s efforts to reduce crime among young people.
Dr Nottage said T A Thompson Junior High School and C C Sweeting Senior High School will be the first schools to participate in the programme as they have been “warring” with each over the past few months.
“Crime,” he said, “is reducible but we are putting new energies into the fight. For example we are introducing a new programme this week in the high school with students from T A Thompson Junior Thompson and C C Sweeting Senior high school who have been warring on the streets of New Providence for several weeks now. We are taking the ones who have the greatest disciplinarian problems in the school system and introducing them to a shock treatment package,” he said.
“Which means we take them out of school and we take them for three days and we expose them to what life is like for persons who continue to operate the way they are operating. They are going to spend time sleeping in the Central Police Station. They will spend time in prison and they are going to come up against some of the things that criminals come up against.
“But we aren’t only going to show them the bad side of things, we are also going to show them what life would be like for them if they just obey the law. So what we are doing is exposing them to some of the packages at BTVI and show them how they can learn a skill.
“We are taking them over to Atlantis to show them how people are when they work long enough to take a vacation. We are taking them to the airport for them to see what it is like to go off the island and travel. So these are some of the strategies we are implementing.
“We are getting the support of the parents and the school system and we are very hopeful that over the course of the next year or so we will begin to see a positive result from these strategies.”
Dr Nottage said broken “fatherless homes” is a key factor in young men committing crimes and becoming a nuisance to society.
“Family dysfunction,” he said, “is the basis for a lot of the crime. We have families which are ill, there are many absent fathers. For example, when we poll the students of the homes in some of the ‘over the hill’ communities we found that 80 per cent of students live in a home where their mother is the head of the household, where there is no father or father figure.
“So what does that tell you, that tells you that males are absent and the result of males’ absence is seriously felt. We have the problem of too much of our youngsters dropping out of school or getting suspended or expelled. What we have to be able to do is identify the students who have a problem and submit them to conditions to strategies that will help to reform them.”
Comments
generalcrazy 10 years, 6 months ago
LOL say BTVI and learn a skill - they just wanna smoke weed, drink guiness, and ride trail bikes. If you look at where most of them live, it's no wonder (plus all the big skilled jobs are given to foreigners but lets not go there right now). Take them out of that situation permanently and place them in mandatory military service - I would say social care but that's hardly better than the ghetto shacks they live in now.
He is partly right though, many of them are simply uneducated and not in the school sense - they have no parents to teach right from wrong. Nothing to do with just having a "father figure", a father figure is no good if the father doesn't know right from wrong either. In fact one could go as far as saying, it's the parents that need educating first.
Purcell 10 years, 6 months ago
And you going to pay for that by asking the Chinese for another loan selling out the country?
sheeprunner12 10 years, 6 months ago
If these politicians (PLP and FNM) had not messed up the YEAST sponsored programme and failed to introduce the National Youth Service Programme decades ago, BJ wont have to be talking this BS now.......... chickens coming home to roost.
Bahamianpride 10 years, 6 months ago
BJN i applaud your approach. You are addressing as part of the solution to the crime problem education, prevention, & deterrence. I respect the fact that u were one of the first to address this family crisis of fatherless kids and irresponsible breeding and parenting as the feeding source. I am a non partisan so i can objectively recognize good efforts by a politicians. Great Job Sir..
CANDACESCOTT 10 years, 6 months ago
Just protect people children, because there have be cases of murder and rape in those cells and brutality... I am not to comfortable with this plan.
BahamianAway 10 years, 6 months ago
How do we know this won't backfire and become some kind of street credibility. "Oh I spent the night in jail and I am a bada** now".
Just gotta be careful....
TalRussell 10 years, 6 months ago
Comrades will this spell an end to police "lock-up" wedding ceremonies? Another no real plan of "spin da-crime-wheel" of possible solutions to detour crime. Instead of more buses heading in the direction of Her majesty's Fox Hill Prison, the government should try releasing the many who have no business to have been sent up there in the first place. How can the government just play to the media, while skipping over our broken, failed judicial system, regardless whatever political party just happened to be the government of the day.Comrades we continue sending our (mostly young men) to prison, only to release them back into the same broken Bahamaland society they failed at before ... but even more disadvantaged with a jail-time criminal record.
Purcell 10 years, 6 months ago
They are releasing inmates all right; murderers, armed robbers and rapists on bail. The small fry are kept behind bars.
Purcell 10 years, 6 months ago
While bleeding heart liberals will whine about their right being violated and all that nonsense , this is a great idea. Give the inmates incentives to intimidate the crap out of them during the visit too.
sheeprunner12 10 years, 6 months ago
QUESTION
Can the Ministers of Education and National Security inform the country of the number of students who have been EXPELLED from the public school system for the school year????
Students who have received multiple suspensions in he school year should be put in this program.
proudloudandfnm 10 years, 6 months ago
I like this plan. Good idea. I'm behind it all the way. Best time to impress kids is young, spending time in the system will show them a possible future and hopefully scare them enough to do what they can to avoid jail.
Similar to the scared straight plan in the USA. Good move...
TalRussell 10 years, 6 months ago
Comrade i know you are a proud Bahamalander but have you really thought this one through? Don't you think our young boys and girls are worth more than just another government media play by bringing their own "Push Lawn Mower" solutions to the Youth Table?
proudloudandfnm 10 years, 6 months ago
I know our crime problem is a result of two things. Lousy policing and up bringing. This plan may not save all but it will impact some enough to keep them out of trouble. If it saves just one child from a life of crime I'm for it.. The fight has to start somewhere....
TalRussell 10 years, 6 months ago
Comrade good you want keep politics out this most important decision. We do have an obligation to protect our children from being used as just another media political competition to get tough on crime. Matters not, what colour shirt a minister is wearing.
SP 10 years, 6 months ago
At what point will the PLP and FNM stop looking for scape goats and admit crime is a direct result of a lack of education and opportunity?
My father died when I was just barely a teenager and I am proof positive today that the "Daddy's Not Home" excuse for crime is nonsense, absolute political malarkey!
The PLP & FNM simply totally FAILED at education, FAILED to grow and diversify the economy and FAILED to cause economic opportunities.
One only need to just LOOK at other regional resort destinations and what they have to offer and compare the Bahamas......THERE IS NOTHING TO DO HERE!
They cannot be allowed to get away with blaming "Daddys Not Home" for their STUPIDITY!
Now they say "Baha Mar" is the saving grace for the country....More political smoke and mirrors!
Baha Mar and Albany combined cannot absorb all the high school graduates from the 3 years it takes to build the projects! What about the 35,000 already unemployed today?
Where are the mandatory vocational programs for 9th graders and up? Where are the investments in solar power, animal husbandry, agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and other areas to diversify the economy?
We are importing well over $1B annually in goods. Start by identifying the top 20 imports and find ways to make those products here...
WHAT IS SO DAMN HARD?
PastorTroy 10 years, 6 months ago
WOW! This comment, leaves nothing else for me to say, and I know I can be a bit 'long winded'.. GREAT COMMENT SP!!
---------At what point will the PLP and FNM stop looking for scape goats and admit crime is a direct result of a lack of education and opportunity?
We are not experiencing the residual effect of a broken educational, political and hypocritically indoctrinated system. The chickens has come home to roost! My father died when I was 1 year old, Mom was a party animal, I had to work from since I was 14, moved to the U.S and hustle my own way through college. College was fun, but I know had to do what I had to do, I had no one to fall back on... Education and Opportunity is POWERFUL!!!!
PastorTroy 10 years, 6 months ago
*We are NOW experiencing the residual effect...
Emac 10 years, 6 months ago
I nominate SP for prime minister!
SP 10 years, 6 months ago
Until the PLP & FNM admit their FAILURES....There will never be resolution to crime & unemployment!
Both parties will never admit to gross political stupidity.....Thus we will continue in a protracted downward spiral.
sheeprunner12 10 years, 6 months ago
In the meantime............ what do you do with a lot of lawless twelve to sixteen year olds who wreak havoc on the public school system everyday????????
THAT'S THE ISSUE AT HAND..................... OFFER SUGGESTIONS PLEASE..........
John 10 years, 6 months ago
While Dr. Nottage acknowledges that the major problem may be that at least 80 percent of children come from fatherless homes or home without father figures, he now intends to introduce a 'shock treatment package" to deal with teens who go awry of the law. Research shows that these 'scared straight' programs do not work. In fact some research shows that they are, more harmful than not intervening at all. If something positive is missing out of a persons life, then you must replace it with something POSITIVE. Hence the government may need to get more male teachers into the school system, even if it means hiring retired police and other male civil servants to go in and do classes if only on a part time basis Research shows that the effects of growing without a father has effects on a child, especially males throughout their entire life and is only lessened by things positive . Children have enough shock and drama in their everyday lives without being expose to prison cells and jails, where their safety may not be certain.
According to Jaime Hale: “Controlled studies show that boot camp and “Scared Straight” interventions are ineffective, and even potentially harmful, for delinquents.” — Lilienfeld et al, 2010, p.225
‘Scared Straight’ is a program designed to deter juvenile participants from future criminal offenses. Participants visit inmates, observe first-hand prison life and have interaction with adult inmates. These programs are popular in many areas of the world.
The basic premise of these programs are that juveniles who see what prison is like will be deterred from future violations of the law — in other words, “scared straight.” “Scared Straight” emphasizes severity of punishment, but neglects two other key components of deterrence theory — certainty and swiftness (Mears, 2007). Nine trials met the criteria for the study. The researchers’ results indicated “the [Scared Straight] intervention to be more harmful than doing nothing. The program effect, whether assuming a fixed or random effects model, was nearly identical and negative in direction, regardless of the meta-analytic strategy.” In other words, Scared Straight not only doesn’t work, it may actually be more harmful than doing nothing.
Another meta-analysis showed “Scared Straight” interventions could possibly worsen conduct-disorder symptoms (Lilinefeld, 2005). A meta-analysis conducted by Aos and colleagues (2001) showed that “Scared Straight” and similar programs produced substantial increases in recidivism (chronic relapse into crime).
Evidence indicates that “Scared Straight” and similar programs are simply not effective in deterring criminal activity. In fact, these types of programs may be harmful and increase delinquency relative to no intervention at all with the same youths.
John 10 years, 6 months ago
According to Dr. DeMichelle, Senior Research Associate American Parole and Probation Association, “Scared Straight” programs rely on a deterrence-based strategy that fails to consider the driving mechanisms of deterrence. These mechanisms include: certainty of receiving a punishment or negative stimuli following a behavior, and swiftness of the punishment or negative stimuli (referring to temporal proximity of punishment to the unwanted behavior).
In other words, punishment or negative stimuli must be presented shortly after the unwanted behavior. The minister must also note that there are persons who are on bail for two, three and maybe four murders, and persons who have long criminal records. Young men Their interaction with prison and court system and adult inmates did not deter them from further criminal activity. In fact many continue in that life until they are found shot dead.
Maybe that is part of the problem with crime in the Bahamas: punishment or negative stimuli must be presented shortly after the unwanted behavior. We have persons who have committed crime, including murder, on bail for to long before they are brought to trial.
Even Sandilands has stopped giving shock treatment and replaced it with medications and intervention that is based on positive reinforcement.
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 6 months ago
Can this offer this shock treatment to politicians.,
Emac 10 years, 6 months ago
LOL Good one!
SP 10 years, 6 months ago
@ sheeprunner12......... Elementary Question Jr. Watson.....
1) Designate 1 entire school compass best secured and suited for a vocational training trade school.
2) Identify and enroll all the "havoc" causing worse of the worst students Island wide and make it unquestionably mandatory that they reach at least a "C" average in Math and English simultaneously exposing and teaching them a hands on trade which they MUST become efficient at least to the point of being employable prior to graduation.
This simple initiative totally removes all the problem children and therefore the problems throughout the school system, freeing teachers to focus on teaching and allowing kids that want to learn the opportunity to do so.
Would you now care for the short solution to the PLP & FNM 40 year circus of asinine political stupidity and corruption?
sheeprunner12 10 years, 6 months ago
Thats a super-size Programme SURE................ FYI. Am open to anything thats going to allow most public schools to have a semblance of civility, order and learning to take place at least 75% of the school day.
SP 10 years, 6 months ago
@ ThisIsOurs... Politicians are notably insensitive to anything short of actually losing power.
However, I am totally with you on this one.
1 positive charged 1000kw probe in their mouths and the negative probe in their ass's!
Don't forget to make them wear those idiotic red and yellow shirts and bring popcorn for the kids!
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 6 months ago
..I didn't mention nuttin about probes:) you on yuh own with dat:)
proudloudandfnm 10 years, 6 months ago
I still say it's a good idea and let's give it a try.
TalRussell 10 years, 6 months ago
Comrades it’s evident the energies and the imagination of this minister and his cabinet colleague when it comes you our youth, have become equally as exhausted as the previous regime. There’s lots positive images we can and should be exposing our cherished school-aged kids to but a “prisoner’s ball and chain” is not one of them.
Publius 10 years, 6 months ago
The government has absolutely no legal authority to do what Nottage has announced!!! Bahamas what is happening to us? Is anyone paying real attention anymore to what this government is doing to Bahamian citizens?
asiseeit 10 years, 6 months ago
Look, there are no parents out there for a vast majority of our population, there are children having children and it just goes against the laws of nature. children having children is an unsustainable practice but it has been accepted by this ignorant population. Now we are reaping Natures wrath. Why are the parents of a 11, 12, 13 year old girl that is pregnant not arrested until the boy or most likely man is fessed up to the police for statutory rape? The powers that be have let this happen because most of them are child rapist themselves.
asiseeit 10 years, 6 months ago
Get to the ROOT of the problem, there is no order in this country, anything goes, ignorance rules, and the politrickan gets rich!
sheeprunner12 10 years, 6 months ago
and white people run the economy............ like Africa. So much for black pride
PastorTroy 10 years, 6 months ago
'Scare tactics' will not work, I hate to sound like a pessimist, but many study have shown they do not work. We are living in an information age, IMHO these kids will get more 'street cred' with this program. What we need is EDUCATION & OPPORTUNITY... But with politicians and many religious leaders just lining their own pockets, with rampant cronyism, especially when there is no CONNECTED father in the home, because for the past 40 years, it's who you know or what you have to offer those that have or in position to give. Many of the young girls know they have what many of the older men want and the younger gay men too, but to be young, straight and not indoctrinated you are in problems! Seems like everyone has to 'pimp' themselves out to someone to get ahead in The Bahamas. ------- A few years ago I interviewed at one of the largest and most respected employer in The Bahamas, With what I considered to be a very good resume, after years in consumer banking, a college degree a stable family and one of many Bahamians living in foreign countries wanting to come home and better our Bahamaland, The director of HR did not ask for or try confirm any college or work history, he ask for my BJC's and BGCSE's... I've been out of high school for more than 30 years! If this is what I encounter, what about those young men who don't have what I've obtained? Many of these dinosaurs use job, hiring, job security, promotion etc as a means for selfish reasons and their own job security. Keeping the status quo to ensure they remain relavent and employed. I will admit, as a young male growing up in the Bahamas, it can be intimidating because you have to constantly defend yourself from physical harm, just like the girls have to constantly defend themselves from both physical and sexual harm, it's very frustrating especially with limited education and no job skills, and sometimes if you do have it, who you know or what do you have to offer me may render you unemployable! Not to mention the disastrous "war on drugs" when it comes to the black community especially 'those young black men'. Let's face it, when we copy draconian, racist laws from the U.S we cannot expect not to experience the residual effect like they do. E-D-U-C-A-T-I-O-N & O-P-P-O-R-T-U-N-I-T-Y IS THE KEY!!!
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 6 months ago
Total agreement.
Brenard 10 years, 6 months ago
I have seen this so called shock tactic used in 2003 on male students at L.W. Young. The students were taken to HMP for a day where they were exposed to while being intimidated by the prisoners. One of the students even met his father there. Did it work? No, it didn't. Is this something original and new? No.
However, the execution of this project might be different from that of 2003. I am in support of anything that can be used to help the youth of such a deeply corrupted, greedy, hateful, vengeful, misleaded, ignorant, uneducated and government brainwashed society develop themselves.
What I really think? I think this is just a stunt. Maybe, I am wrong. Maybe, I am just so, so, so weary of these governments. Time is always the accurate answer.
Required 10 years, 6 months ago
Amazing how our government can hire foreign consultants for every crap, probably to decide on what to order for dinner, too, but when it comes to educational programmes, they can't even be bothered to read readily available research:
"Interventions that embody ‘therapeutic’ philosophies, such as counselling and skills training, were far more effective than those based on strategies of control or coercion, i.e. surveillance, deterrence, and discipline. In fact evidence suggests that programmes that mainly focus on deterrence or discipline can actually have the opposite effect and lead to an increase in offending behaviour. For example, programmes that employ shock tactics, such as ‘scared straight’ programs, where young offenders are taken to maximum security prisons and told of the horrors and difficulties of life in prison by the inmates, have been linked with increased offending." (From: "Prevention and Reduction: A review of strategies for intervening early to prevent or reduce youth crime and anti-social behaviour." https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s…)
ohdrap4 10 years, 6 months ago
they dont have google cause the media is against them
John 10 years, 6 months ago
US Department of Justice DISCOURAGES use of 'scared straight" programs Please read: https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/news_a…
snwallace 10 years, 6 months ago
Hi john can you give me a call in the morning? My number is 3287112. You can call after 9am. I want to ask you something
TalRussell 10 years, 6 months ago
Comrades PM and Minister Dr. Bernard, if you are willing to put away for good the "prisoner's ball and chain mentality" and you sincerely desire to begin to see a steady and positive leap forward, toward tackling all ever so close to destroying our tiny Bahamaland, be it crime, a sagging economy, teenage pregnancies, youth gangs, children becoming drug sellers, thieves, rapists and killers, all before they become of driver's license age, would you consider the appointment of a new and "substantive" Minister For The Advancement Of Youths. Your senior Minister should be charged,with the responsibility to make damn sure that, the first and last thought on the mind of the PM and his entire Cabinet Colleagues as they begin to debate and vote on each and every cabinet decision, is will what we are passing here in this cabinet room today, shine a light to meet the challenges of our nation's youths and to pave their way forward.
thomas 10 years, 6 months ago
Failing education leads to incarceration.
SP 10 years, 6 months ago
So it is settled then...
Shock treatment remains the only viable solution for the PLP & FNM!
John 10 years, 6 months ago
This is some of the most disappointing information to come from the minister of national security ever. Despite there being clear evidence that the programs he intends to introduce do not work,and the police are already faced with problems of persons dying in their custody, or receiving serious and 'unexplained' injuries he wants to put adolescent children in their care. There is also the question of the credibility of some police officers and prison cells are not the healthiest place for a teenager. Persons get arrested for simple matters and end up with many other charges put on them, more than a dozen in some cases Some persons are held over the weekend, from Friday to Monday and they fill the cell walls with human excrement. Some are vagrants or illegal immigrants who occupy these cells may have TB and other diseases that children can be exposed to. Then you expect these children to come back to society and act normal? Shame on you minister!
John 10 years, 6 months ago
***Dr Nottage said broken “fatherless homes” is a key factor in young men committing crimes and becoming a nuisance to society.
“Family dysfunction,” he said, “is the basis for a lot of the crime. We have families which are ill, there are many absent fathers. For example, when we poll the students of the homes in some of the ‘over the hill’ communities we found that 80 per cent of students live in a home where their mother is the head of the household, where there is no father or father figure.
I ain't no expert, but if the 'absentee father' is identified as the major factor contributing to young men committiing crime, then why not introduce positive social programs to fix that problem? 1. A woman has to go through nine months of pregnancy. Establish a program where single expectant mothers most attend a number of parenting classes. Among other things she will learn the importance of having the father actively involved in the child's life. Mothers must learn that the way they dress and conduct themselves, and if the abuse substances, be it drugs or alcohol, it will effect their children. 2. Also require unwed expectant fathers to attend classes, where they will be taught the importance of being actively involved in their children's lives, not only to buy milk and pampers but to teach and nurture that child and to be a role model and a positive example for that child to follow. They too must know that their behavior will affect their children. 3.Usually problems start between unwed parents, when one, usually the father, realizes the financial responsibility, is more than he was prepared for, or when one or both parents become involved intimately with someone else. The child becomes a pawn and gets caught up in a tug of war, where the father is put in court for child support and the focus is on the other person one or both parents are involved with rather than the child. Again there needs to be some social programs in place where parents are made to understand the consequences of their behavior on their child. No father, or parent should be made to pay child support if they have no access to their children. 4. There should be places available for fathers to have supervised visits with their children. 5 While there may be a need, a great need to take disruptive, disorderly and violent children out of the classrooms and out of schools, putting them in prison cells or having them interact with prisoners is not the alternative. There may need to be a special institution set up for them, where they can receive counseling and discipline and gradually reenter the general school population.
John 10 years, 6 months ago
sheeprunner12 10 years, 6 months ago
DO YOU REALLY THINK THE BLACK ELITE IN THIS COUNTRY WANTS THE BLACK MASSES TO BE REALLY, FULLY EDUCATED???????
THINK OF THE DUMBING DOWN TACTICS USED SINCE 1967
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