Bullying, murders and politics

The continued murders and deaths of senior citizens and children are taking us to a dangerous place of no return.

In particular, I worry that a 93-year-old woman was assaulted and robbed in broad daylight by three men three weeks ago after using an ATM along the Diego Martin Main Road. A 93-year-old woman?

One was even killed killed while sleeping.

And you wonder, what kind of men would rob and beat up old people so?

These are just a few examples of some men gone mad. Or is it drug-induced normalisation for them, a sinister part of the country’s mental health problem? Can we catch them?

About two weeks ago, 15-year-old form four student, Jayden Lalchan, took his own life after complaining about persistently being bullied at his Princes Town school, St Stephen’s College.

Once again, the nation fell into deep sorrow, asking questions that have been asked several times before. Why didn’t the school authorities take preventive and disciplinary action leading to Servol and MILAT?

Why wasn’t the ministry’s discipline matrix expeditiously implemented?

Lalchan’s parents reportedly said their son “had been bullied for years and reports were made to the school’s administration” without success.

ACP Wayne Mystar promised to have the police report completed and submitted to the DPP “within a week.”

Look, given the multitude of complaints, the education system is heading to crisis zone, even with the ministry’s discipline matrix and protocol. Why?

Lalchan’s sad episode is just the tip of a bullying iceberg that was allowed to float around and grow in the face of evasive accountability.

The Education Act (No 1 0f 1966) states the school supervisors should submit reports to the ministry “on teacher discipline.” The act also states that principals are responsible for the “physical safety of pupils, the discipline of the school and co-operation with parents” (Section 27).

Have these statutory duties been carried out properly? If not the ministry, the police report should say.

The Children Act covers “all children from abuse.” Is there also a place for the act in school bullying?

Somebody has to do something! These bullies drift into full-scale crime.

Justice Frank Seepersad said last month: “Serious thought should be now be given to enact legislation to prosecute the parents of child offenders who embolden and encourage their children to pursue the path of criminality.”

A bully seeks superiority by embarrassing, teasing, humiliating or physically hurting another. The bullied child is often ashamed to admit; afraid to complain for fear of the bully. Bullying exists in families, work place, politics and schools.

According to a scared talk-show caller, it seems a “blight” has overtaken this “God-forsaken” country. It seems there is no respect or fear for police, prisons or the court.

Hence, appeals to the supernatural grow as the earthly authority, government, appears puzzled and helpless as to what next to do. As if evil has taken on a life of its own, dangerously beyond institutional control.

Will the lights of Divali help us? The PM regrets the state of the country’s crime. Police Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher persists in appealing to the Almighty.

The public will judge.

In the last ten years, Finance Minister Colm Imbert said government dutifully gave $26 billion to national security for public safety. Well, who or what precisely went wrong?

Last month, a 33-year-old mother and her two children – three and one – were found murdered and dumped in a water tank in Tobago, whose murder rate is showing unprecedented escalation. Last week, a 29-year-old man was held for allegedly killing a 34-year-old woman and her 14-month-old daughter as a result of a soured relationship.

Last week, toilet water was thrown at a 13-year-old Mason Hall Secondary School form-two student. She was bullied and her schoolbag also thrown away. The girl’s guardian, Rebecca Webb, said she had made several complaints of bullying and of stolen items, but received “no satisfaction from the school authorities.”

When school violence and bullying showed signs of getting out of hand, then Minister of Education, (2002-2007), Mrs Hazel Manning, with her technical team, developed a rolling anti-violence and bullying plan, starting with a risk analysis for some 62 secondary schools (forms one, three and five) then sharing the analysed data for each school with both teachers and parents for feedback.

With the ministry’s support, I was the project leader. We were developing appropriate teacher-training programmes, etc, to reduce and control school violence. The report (Vol 2, 220 pp) was entitled Benchmarking Violence and Delinquency in the Secondary School: Towards a Culture of Peace and Civility.

I submitted 36 recommendations to the ministry; all were accepted, including one for school safety officers to assist teachers in delinquency prevention and control.

Then the government changed in 2010 and Mrs Manning’s rolling plan was dropped. The new minister failed to find the medicine to treat school violence.

This is another story of how politics indirectly contributes to the nation’s problems, especially crime.