The Tribune

“At that time, 2005, everybody was thinking, oh, it only occurs in certain areas and if you don’t live a certain lifestyle or associate with certain people you were going to be all right. Well, we’re not all right, we know now that was a lie, and so we are reaping the bitter fruits of our neglect.” – Rev CB Moss (2014)

Throughout his time as a pastor and community activist committed to tackling the root causes of crime, Rev CB Moss insisted that one of the most under-utilised strategies of crime prevention is social intervention.

Rev Moss spoke from conviction and the experience of watching violence and crime escalate to unprecedented proportions over the decades. He warned the country repeatedly of the hellish behaviour and crime we would reap by failing to address a number of root causes.

Rev Moss’s views on social intervention were echoed as way back in 2004 in the “Diagnostic of Citizen Safety in the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, A Report Submitted to Inter-American Development Bank” drafted by former Financial Secretary Marlon Johnson, the then Director of SAFE Bahamas. That was 19 years ago. Crime has worsened in the intervening years.

The report stated at the outset: “Across the world, there have been many thousands of initiatives developed to address citizen safety issues similar to those in The Bahamas. A considerable number of studies have been carried out to determine which types of programmes work to prevent or mitigate crime, and which simply do not have any measurable impact on crime either immediately or over time.”

The report indicated three levels of strategies and programmes that have enjoyed success across cultures and jurisdictions. One of these is social intervention.

The report notes: “Sustained and targeted intervention strategies – for programmes targeted at modifying destructive behaviour patterns in individuals, there is a need for specificity in what behaviour patterns are being addressed, as well as for constancy in the intervention programmes.”

Here are the key elements: “specificity in what behaviour patterns are being addressed”, and “constancy in the intervention programmes”.

Behaviour is another word for habits. The Chinese philosopher Confucius had a deep and fundamental understanding of human nature: “The nature of man is always the same; it is their habits that separate them.” This is as true for individuals as it is for societies.

In addressing crime and violence, the country requires social development and social intervention strategies which address specific behaviours as well as cultural norms and habits which give rise to certain crimes.

Of course, the best strategies aim for prevention. And, our number one tool is education broadly, but more specifically, greater functional literacy and greater rates of graduation in government-operated high schools. Easily said; not so easily attained.

While there are many excellent targeted social intervention programmes, the most sweeping and effective is basic education. Unless we fix this, our other measures are higher level orders of prevention and more expensive and difficult cures, if we are so fortunate.

Japan and Finland share reputations for excellent schools. Yet, they vary in approaches to learning. The reason Japan, Finland and other countries succeed, is because education is highly valued at every level of society.

Educational reform requires a complex of strategies. There are no magic bullets. Still, there are strategies elemental to any improvement in levels of achievement. There are also fundamental requirements, one of which is the question of culture, and what a people value.

While we pay plenty of lip service to the importance of education, we poorly value the basic building blocks of learning: literacy and mastering the language, without which students will fail in a slew of subjects, and fail to graduate.

Literacy is not solely about getting a job. It is also about critical thinking, the ability to access the world’s treasury of knowledge through one of the most elemental tools of human being: language, which helps to socialise and civilize a people.

On evening news programmes and local journals, in the pulpit, in Parliament, we are often treated to an embarrassing assault on the basics of English. Learning the language is not an important cultural value for far too many Bahamians.

Many parents surmise that they can secure good or adequate jobs or sources of income, despite a lack of proficiency in English. Not only do they pass on this mindset to their children, they are often complacent or indifferent if their children leave school without a diploma or proficiency in English.

In many other countries, parents would be raising hell about low graduation rates and low levels of achievement in government-operated schools. There would be tremendous pressure on political leaders, teachers unions and the educational bureaucracy.

There are many parents in our government-operated school system who are concerned, and who ensure that their children succeed, which is precisely the point. Still, these parents appear to be in the minority.

Across jurisdictions, there is a clear correlation between literacy, graduation rates and criminal conduct. If Bahamians are horrified by crime, we should also be horrified by the low levels of educational achievement in many of our schools. It is not only a national embarrassment. It is a testament to entrenched social dysfunction.

Last year, The Bahamas recorded 128 murders, ranking, according to a report in The Nassau Guardian, “eighth on InSight Crime’s 2022 Homicide Round-Up of countries across Latin America and the Caribbean, though a few countries, including Haiti, were not ranked because there was no reliable data on the number of homicides last year”.

In addressing crime, especially its prevention and causes, political leaders and others should be asked for the specific strategies they have to improve literacy and graduation rates, to improve teaching and learning methods, to expand experiential learning, and to find ways to encourage parents to value literacy, such as, potentially, cash transfer programmes.

To be fair, a number of education ministers and various officials have sought to address a number of these matters. But getting buy-ins from parents, various union leaders and quite a number of teachers, is often difficult.

Many delight in the upcoming annual prom season and enjoy the trappings of school-leaving ceremonies. But in the end, they are empty rites of passage if most students in our government-operated school system fail to achieve a diploma, and fail to achieve competencies which may afford them greater opportunities throughout life.

Those who fail to attain a diploma and competency in the language often have less opportunities and avenues for success. A number of such individuals then turn to criminal enterprise in order to gain material success.

“The nature of man is always the same; it is their habits that separate them,” advised Confucius. One of the best habits we should insist on is more of our young people graduating high school, literate and confident. This is a matter of great urgency in the case of our young men who are dropping out of school at an alarming rate.

In the end, a diploma represents not only competency in certain subject matters. It speaks also of discipline, a feeling of accomplishment, genuine self-esteem, delaying certain gratifications in order to achieve an end, and other values, all of which are excellent crime prevention tools.

• Front Porch is now available in podcast on The Tribune website under the Editorial section.