The Tribune

By Sgt Nathalie Ranger

When a child is born, they are born into a world of sin. Despite their innocence, they immediately become prisoners of their environment and the many influences around them. For some kids, these influences can lead them to a life of progress and success; however, not all kids are blessed with this type of situation.

Every day, countless kids are brought into this world amid broken homes, disrespectful adults and neighbourhood gangs, all of which play a huge role in negatively influencing these young and very impressionable minds. These unfortunate circumstances tend to mould our youths into very disrespectful, rebellious and possibly violent individuals. Is this a definite outcome for youths in these situations? No. However, environments such as these are not easy for our youths to deal with, causing many of them to fall victim to such a lifestyle.

I believe it is now time we citizens and residents of this country reassess our approach to this crime issue; we must now seriously consider addressing crime at the root by taking a more active role in the lives of our nation’s children.

We are all quite aware of the issues this country is experiencing as it relates to crime. My solution to this is that we continue to rehabilitate, but instead of only rehabilitating an already matured mind, we need to focus our efforts on the minds of our children starting at the primary school level; the boys and girls of our country who are lost and need guidance from positive individuals in an effort to save their future.

Children find themselves in situations that often lead to escalated conflicts with their peers. Many children act out their emotions in the form of teasing, gossiping and physical aggression. If left unchecked, these same behavioural patterns will transfer over to the teenage years and some of these kids will pick up a weapon such as a gun because they feel as if that is the only way to solve a conflict. So it is important we teach the children how to deal with conflicts and have on-going projects and seminars in all schools and throughout the community.

These children are crying out for help by being rebellious, turning to gangs and violence, and also turning to negative adults for attention.

There is no government, organisation or person that can do this alone. It takes the effort of all citizens and residents to join hands in the fight against crime in order to save our future which is the children and make The Bahamas a safe place for all.