For­mer mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin said gang lead­ers in the east-west cor­ri­dor and cen­tral are on a re­cruit­ment dri­ve at pri­ma­ry schools.

Dot­tin was speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day be­fore the start of a walkathon host­ed by the Ed­in­burgh Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, Ch­agua­nas. Dot­tin said young peo­ple must be made aware that there are lifestyles out­side of the crim­i­nal un­der­world. He said “I have heard about a pri­ma­ry school stu­dent who was in­vit­ed to burn his par­ents home and he did ex­act­ly that.”

Dot­tin said the march was de­signed to help young peo­ple not to give in­to temp­ta­tion.

“There are neg­a­tive peo­ple who have adopt­ed crim­i­nal lifestyle and they want to in­volve the next gen­er­a­tion and the gen­er­a­tion af­ter the next gen­er­a­tion. We want to tell them that a life of crime does not pay, there are al­ter­na­tives.”

Dot­tin said there is a “re­spect bank­rupt­cy” in T&T where young peo­ple are taught to dis­re­spect those in au­thor­i­ty.

“We are fac­ing an up­hill bat­tle, we are play­ing catch-up, we have to have a heart for the youths and call out the evils in this so­ci­ety and talk to the young peo­ple. What I feel, the neg­a­tive el­e­ments, the crim­i­nal el­e­ments are ahead of main­stream straight so­ci­ety be­cause they are re­cruit­ing young peo­ple at an alarm­ing rate and that must be of con­cern to us, why are we los­ing the bat­tle, why cant we win the bat­tle.”

He said part of the so­lu­tion was to get more young peo­ple in­volved in pos­i­tive groups and ac­tiv­i­ties.