Gail Alexan­der

The PNM Gov­ern­ment has failed to touch the drug barons, white-col­lar crim­i­nals and mon­ey laun­der­ers whose "busi­ness" has flood­ed youths in var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties with guns and drugs, UNC Sen­a­tor Jen­nifer Jones-Ker­na­han said yes­ter­day.

"We have a se­ri­ous prob­lem and it is es­ca­lat­ing out of con­trol," she added in the Sen­ate dur­ing de­bate on a bill to in­sti­tute a com­pre­hen­sive Fam­i­ly Court with High Court ju­ris­dic­tion on mat­ters per­tain­ing to ju­ve­niles. Jones-Ker­na­han, who con­demned Gov­ern­ment's mea­sures to cope with ju­ve­nile delin­quents as "dat­ed," said, "It is not sim­ply a mat­ter of com­ing to Par­lia­ment with a 15-clause bill–we have youths of 14 com­mit­ting se­ri­ous crimes."

"There is a bil­lion dol­lar trade in mon­ey laun­der­ing go­ing on un­der the nose of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al but no white-col­lar crim­i­nals have been touched," Jones-Ker­na­han said . As much love and care, Gov­ern­ment might have for T&T, Jones-Ker­na­han said the re­al his­to­ry of the bill says oth­er­wise, as the bill had lapsed sev­er­al times. She said Gov­ern­ment did not seem cog­nisant of the fact that the bill, which was for­mu­lat­ed in 2004, does not fit the con­text of the–much dif­fer­ent–cur­rent times of 2009.

Jones-Ker­na­han said the bill is be­ing pre­sent­ed at a time when there is a sub­stan­tial break­down of fam­i­ly life and val­ues in many T&T com­mu­ni­ties. The "virus" is no longer re­strict­ed to East-West cor­ri­dor com­mu­ni­ties. She added since the same sit­u­a­tion al­so af­fects Cen­tral Trinidad and the rest of the coun­try. She said there was cul­tur­al re­gres­sion in T&T since par­ents are no longer able to hold fam­i­ly struc­tures to­geth­er for a sta­ble en­vi­ron­ment in which to bring up youths, and many more crimes were al­so be­ing com­mit­ted against chil­dren.

At the same time, she added, there was a to­tal lack of com­mit­ment on Gov­ern­ment's part to deal with white col­lar-crime, drug barons and mon­ey laun­der­ers whose "busi­ness" have had a trick­le-down ef­fect in­to com­mu­ni­ties, flood­ing youths with guns and drugs. Jones-Ker­na­han said many in so­ci­ety had at­trib­uted be­hav­iour and vi­o­lent crime by youths to gang lead­ers and crim­i­nal el­e­ments con­trol­ling com­mu­ni­ties "whether we like it or not," she said.

She re­lat­ed a sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing a maxi taxi dri­ver who has to pay a gang when­ev­er he has to pass through their area in Port of Spain."These are youths less than 20 years old and they will take the 12 and 13-year-olds and teach them and they get in­volved au­to­mat­i­cal­ly," she added. Some youths walk around with knives or oth­er weapons, she added, not­ing a mur­der at an E/W cor­ri­dor sec­ondary school. And peer pres­sure is al­so con­tribut­ing to the sit­u­a­tion, Jones-Ker­na­han said,"We know what this can do to the most saint­ly of chil­dren."

She said im­pris­on­ment may not al­ways be the best so­lu­tion for ju­ve­nile delin­quents since they ac­quire a "PhD in crime" and make crim­i­nal con­tacts while in jail. Jones Ker­na­han said chil­dren in some com­mu­ni­ties were al­so se­vere­ly trau­ma­tised as a re­sult of the sit­u­a­tion since their par­ents or rel­a­tives fall vic­tim to or were in­volved in crime.

The Sen­a­tor said the few coun­selling cen­tres around the coun­try were in­suf­fi­cient to deal with the sit­u­a­tion and she cit­ed the Aus­tralian mod­el which has coun­selling cen­tres in all com­mu­ni­ties to deal with fam­i­ly mat­ters. In T&T, she said, very of­ten mat­ters such as spousal abuse are re­solved in a com­mu­ni­ty and not in a coun­selling cen­tre–and just as of­ten–they are re­solved in death. She said it will be a Her­culean task for or­gan­i­sa­tions and oth­er bod­ies to solve the cur­rent prob­lem.