Parents must close gap to gangs

The proliferation of gangs can be reduced if proper parenting values are implemented in the home.That’s the view of Assistant Commissioner of Prisons Deopersad Ramoutar who said parents have “dropped the ball” in showing love and appreciation to their children and this has led to “other persons” filling the “gaps” left by them. He was speaking to reporters during the first of a two-part European Union sponsored conflict resolution workshop at Creative Arts Centre, Circular Road, San Fernando yesterday.

"These children eventually grow up to be tough in an environment without love and as they become adults, they fall prey to the negative elements and they become seasoned deviants and criminal-minded persons.”

He said there is a process to become involved in a gang and noted that troubled young people do not have to choose a life of crime but are often led that way by deviant peers.

“Before you reach to the gang leaders it is the deviant peer, deviant peers gradually graduate to become the gang leaders. A young man or woman who is adventurous in school and always gets in trouble, he can easily become a criminal but he doesn’t necessarily have to and that is where proper parenting comes in, so you identify the high impact and you know he has some energy you have to harness that.”

He disagreed with the practice of describing gang leaders as community leaders.

“That’s a wrong terminology.”

Ramoutar, who is also the coordinator and founder of the mediation unit in the service, said these “broken” men and women are sent to prison to “mend” them to return to society.

“Sometimes it is difficult to mend them where the crack stop so we have to psychologically break them completely and rebuild them and that's where the prison mandate is in restorative justice, rehabilitation.”

Asked whether TT has lost an entire generation given the significant number of young people in the prison system, Ramoutar said, “nothing is lost” and reiterated that society had to enforce family and parenting values.

EU Ambassador Aad Biesebroek said the workshop was organised to “try and help reduce the level of violence at the schools and give the children a handle to deal with conflict situations and differences of opinion in a correct manner.”

He said while violence was a problem in other countries, TT has witnessed an alarming increase in violent crime which was not happening elsewhere.

“Clearly that is more than what you see in some other countries, and it is concerning.”

He said young people were asked to participate in a video jingle competition where they used their creativity to make videos to steer their peers away from violence.