Opposition Member for East End Cayman Islands Arden Mc Lean, right, and Independent Member D Ezzard Miller, share a light moment. Occasion was the 35th Conference of the Caribbean, Americas and Atlantic Region of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) at Hyatt Regency Hotel, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain. Photo: Michelle Loubon

“There is no such thing as a bad child, only bad parents.” Arden Mc Lean, Opposition Member of the East End Cayman Islands, made this comment during the debate on “Is there a role for regional Parliaments in solving our common problem of crime and youth violence? This view was met with a ripple of approval. Mc Lean was attending the 35th Conference of the Caribbean, Americas and Atlantic Region of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) at Hyatt Regency Hotel, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, on Tuesday.

He asked: “What about the children who are 14 and come in at 4 am? What about the village concept?” Several other participants bought into the village concept. But they had more questions than answers with regard to what should be done about youth violence and deviant behaviour. Dominica was represented by Speaker of the House of Assembly Alix Boyd-Knights. Another speaker from Dominica lamented the Caribbean had made significant strides in eliminating poverty and more educational opportunities abounded but crime still existed. “Are we educating people to be criminals? Crime levels were not that high? People were poorer but they had less crime?” he asked.

A representative from Grenada said: “We need to engage them in things that we used to have before. We need to return to God and traditional values.” There was another view that there were many academics but they lacked social and survival skills. Minister in the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs Stacey Roopnarine lamented young people had to deal with unemployment and lack of educational opportunities. “We need to get unemployment down from 23 per cent. We need to get anti-gang legislation. Perhaps legislation for the legal age of alcohol consumption,” she said.

Opposition Senator Shamifa Cudjoe said parliamentarians needed to set the right example by engaging in civil behaviour. She asked: “What do you expect when we refuse to speak properly in Parliament? What do you expect from the young people. What about the police who abuse their authority? They are looking at what is coming from the parliamentarians. In this day of cable TV, we don’t have the time to take the youth into consideration,” said Cudjoe. There were suggestions from the floor on the need for mentorship programmes and proper rehabilitation for prisoners to prevent recidivism.