A re­formed gang­ster be­lieves one of the ways to break and gang cul­ture in the coun­try is for the po­lice to work with ex-con­victs on out­reach pro­grammes and me­di­a­tion aimed at-risk youths.

Desmond Bap­tiste, 49, of Sea Lots a con­vict­ed mur­der­er on Death Row who was freed fol­low­ing a Privy Coun­cil rul­ing 18 years ago, is call­ing for the re­turn of Project Rea­son, a pro­gramme in which he was in­volved which he said had been mak­ing in­roads in gang com­mu­ni­ties,

“We un­der­stand that the po­lice have cer­tain pow­ers and abil­i­ties to car­ry out their func­tions but them alone can­not stop what tak­ing place here. I talk­ing about most­ly up in the hills of Laven­tille and I have the au­thor­i­ty to say that be­cause I was in­volved in gangs there so I know,” he said.

“I was pulled in by the sol­diers to be a part of Project Rea­son be­cause you need peo­ple who live the life from the same ghet­tos to help to change the think­ing and mind­set of the more younger in­di­vid­u­als who look­ing to en­ter that kind of gang­ster life.

“We al­ready live that and done that,” he added.

Bap­tiste said he func­tioned as a vi­o­lence in­ter­rupter, di­rect­ly ap­proach­ing gang­sters to rea­son with them and stop re­tal­i­a­tion at­tacks.

He said: “I used to go in the mid­dle of a gang war and be that me­di­a­tor that one to crack peace be­cause I have that re­spect to do so. It was do­ing a great job but they stopped it and I saved lives then and still sav­ing lives be­cause up to to­day peo­ple call me to in­ter­vene and that’s what is need­ed again.”

Point­ing to the Laven­tille hills which can be seen from the wa­ter­front at Sea Lots, Bap­tiste was adamant that there were no crim­i­nal gangs in his com­mu­ni­ty, just a “bond” among the young peo­ple.

“Long time the gangs dealt with in­di­vid­u­als now gangs deals with an en­tire vil­lage or com­mu­ni­ty which I see will get worse and these youth men in here are un­der at­tack and they are just stand­ing in uni­son with each oth­er,” he said.

“They grow up to­geth­er, they were hun­gry to­geth­er and they suf­fered to­geth­er so they will stand to­geth­er.”

He said the crim­i­nal gangs orig­i­nat­ed gen­er­a­tions ago at Block 8 John John in Laven­tille, in an era he was a part of.

“It have the Mus­lims that start­ed off the gang wars at Block 8 John John and it de­vel­oped over time with each off­spring but now they us­ing this Mus­lim thing off key. We now con­sid­er them to be the rene­gades be­cause of the in­dif­fer­ent and brazen lev­els that they have reached to,” he said.

Busi­ness­man Neazam Tay­lor, a gen­er­al con­trac­tor who has been liv­ing in Sea Lots 33 years, said he re­fus­es to move out of the area de­spite its stig­ma.

He said he was in­stru­men­tal in the 2010-2015 pe­ri­od hav­ing the in­fra­struc­ture in the Sea Lots area im­proved, in­clud­ing get­ting the roads paved, wa­ter and street­lights. His goal now is to ed­u­cate young peo­ple.

“It has al­ready start­ed and a lot of them are push­ing them­selves more. Some are go­ing to Queens Roy­al Col­lege, St Mary’s Col­lege, but more needs to be done. We need to form groups here and the same in oth­er places but we have come a long way,” he said

A Laven­tille res­i­dent, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said young peo­ple had no choice to join gangs be­cause if they re­fused they could be killed.

“This gang thing se­ri­ous and you find most join­ing be­cause they have no fa­thers... they have no one to guide them, so when they find what they think is guid­ance they will fol­low. Many are ap­proached and they are forced in­to it un­til they be­come ac­cus­tomed to the life and it is hard for them to come out of it,” he said.

“Here in Laven­tille we, the el­ders are forced in­to si­lence be­cause we can be killed. Some of the ar­eas here are un­der siege but we live around it.”