The Tribune

A gnawing grief seized the family and friends of former Member of Parliament and Deputy House of Assembly Speaker, Don Saunders, following his murder during an armed robbery. Given his status and profile in the country, it shocked many in the political establishment and the nation in general.

The grief, shock, and frustration following his killing, was seen in the images at his funeral mass and at the graveside. It is a grief experienced by the families of murder victims just about every week of the year. Murderous grief stalks New Providence.

His stepfather, Archdeacon Keith Cartwright, gave sobbing voice to the sense of despair in the face of the unrelenting violence and killings that haunt the residents of New Providence.

Fr Cartwright addressed the nation, including the political directorate at the state-recognised funeral at St Agnes, for Saunders, who was on the cusp of turning 50. Yet another Bahamian son, with a wife and children, and with considerable potential, mercilessly and senselessly killed.

The grieving Archdeacon spoke passionately and with understandable anger about the deficits of family life contributing mightily to crime and violence. He rightly noted that the state is not primarily responsible for nor capable of raising children.

He addressed the political elite, including Prime Minister Philip Davis and Opposition Leader, Michael Pintard. He homilised about politicians playing games on crime.

Many politicians are indifferent because they are not as directly affected by the violence and criminality that is the daily reality of many in the urban harshness and cauldron of our most populous island.

Still, when it comes to the political directorate, the problem is even deeper and more frustrating than the Archdeacon and many others recognise.

Many of our leaders truly do not have the sociological awareness, depth of understanding, social science background, or curiosity to understand the complexity of social elements responsible for the miasma of violence in the country.

Critically, unfortunately, it seems that none of our past prime ministers nor the current leaders of either of our major parties likely understand the deep sociological and cultural problems we face, many of which are at the root of the culture of violence in The Bahamas.

Some have thrown up their hands in frustration because they are truly perplexed that despite spending many tens of millions on the police, the courts, and correctional services, that crime continues to increase.

Neither the Free National Movement nor the Progressive Liberal Party have demonstrated a comprehensive understanding or devised a suite of more targeted social policies in terms of crime and violence.

Yes, there have been advances in education, health care, job-creation and other areas. We do need a more functional criminal justice system that will reduce the number of matters requiring a trial. Bail reform remains a critical matter.

However, none of the aforementioned are sufficient given the nature of crime in the country. More direct and sustained intervention is needed in a country, that given our small population, should not be expected to have approximately more than 20 murders a year.

Not every child can pull themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps. Moreover, it is a short-sighted mindset that would end certain intervention programmes because they were supposedly too expensive. Imagine how many more young people would have been assisted had certain programmes not been discontinued some years ago.

Social intervention and youth development will cost considerable public funds, especially given the depth of our social problems. We have rightly spent hundreds of millions or even billions on physical infrastructure. We will also have to spend many millions on the social infrastructure required to re-civilise many of our people.

Every human generation must be socialised. Such civilising is not an osmotic process. It does not occur naturally. It requires work, repetition, and endless vigilance.

A child has to be potty-trained, taught how to speak and write, and trained how to control his or her temper. None of these is automatic. Absent such socialisation, the human animal is wild. Sadly, there are many feral individuals throughout New Providence.

It is through institutions, such as the family, churches, schools, sports, youth groups, the military, and others that young people are provided with order and civilised.

A friend has a young son in a martial arts programme. When the martial arts teacher or sensei calls the children to order, they quiet down, they dutifully line up, they open themselves to discipline, and they follow instructions.

How might we replicate this sense of order and discipline, especially given the deficits of family life and the deep slackness in our social culture?

Given the myriad problems within families, we need intermediate institutions and programmes that will help to socialise generations of young people who view violence and retribution as the appropriate response to conflict and their sense of being “disrespected” or hurt.

A video is making the rounds on social media of a fight at a government-operated high school in Grand Bahama. The students seem mesmerised by the violence, like it was entertainment. Such a response is typical of many jurisdictions.

The culture of violence in The Bahamas is fed by many sources. But what are the sources of non-violence, conflict resolution, restraint? Just as violence is taught and mirrored by those who observe it, so too is the obverse.

Not too long ago, a group of students would stop fighting or curtail certain behaviour when in the presence of school administrators, teachers, parents, police officers, religious leaders and other people of authority.

We do not know the full details of the video from the school in Grand Bahama. But many teachers report that their authority and that of others, is breezily dismissed by many young people, indifferent, unafraid and disrespectful to authority figures.

Just as we are taught violence, fighting, maiming, and killing, we have to be socialized in the arts of peace. What might our collective response be as a society?

As noted repeatedly in this column, one major response is an ambitious programme for at-risk and other youth in the criminal justice system.

Such a programme will be geared toward rebuilding young people who lack some of the most basic human abilities they never gained from their families or from a slack and dysfunctional society producing feral behaviour.

More judges, more police cars, and more prison cells are not enough to address the roots of our social dysfunction, the symptoms of which have exploded like a dangerous virus in our high levels of crime and violence.

The inculcation of discipline, respect, self-restraint, life and other skills, require vaccination-like responses, treatments and rehabilitation to help our young people, repeat offenders, and society to be healthier.

Over the years, various youth programmes have been suggested, but never been reviewed by any government. These include the AMIkids programme, in the United States, which has an 80 percent success rate.

The Summer School for Boys, a programme based on the successful Afro Reggae youth initiative in Brazil, a Youth Development Centre, among others have been recommended in this column and by others.

Collectively, such initiatives may prove comprehensive and far-reaching. What these programmes have in common is helping to directly address the habits and behaviour of those who commit the overwhelming majority of crime: young men.

And, yes, they will cost. But they will be less costly than the grief and loss of potential of individuals like Don Saunders, and those who allegedly committed the crime that led to his woefully unnecessary death.

Another major initiative would be a national afterschool programme that may reach thousands of young people, and which will be explored next week. Imagine a programme that will give greater opportunity and foster more discipline and human development skills for our children and youth.

Archdeacon Cartwright and others are right to call for prayer. One of the prayers we need is for God to grant insight to political and other leaders.

Many of our leaders do not understand or refuse to see the underlying sociological realities of our society mesmerised by a culture of violence and death, to which many of us are immune or becoming increasingly tolerant.