RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Chil­dren younger than 12 are be­ing in­doc­tri­nat­ed in­to gangs and are be­ing used to con­ceal weapons, drugs and oth­er il­le­gal items.

So said so­ci­ol­o­gist Dr David Muham­mad dur­ing a peace march held on the streets of Siparia yes­ter­day.

Muhammed, who has worked with youth from Sea Lots, Mor­vant, Laven­tille and the East-West cor­ri­dor, not­ed that chil­dren are join­ing gangs be­cause they need­ed to feel a sense of be­long­ing.

He said: “Gang­sters tar­get 11 and 12-year-olds and have them keep in their pos­ses­sion, il­le­gal items whether it is guns and il­le­gal nar­cotics. These gang­sters be­lieve the po­lice will not search a 12-year-old. They give them three or four il­le­gal items to keep. They call them gun sacks and that is how the as­so­ci­a­tion be­gins.”

Say­ing these pre-teen as­so­ciates feel a sense of em­pow­er­ment through their gang in­volve­ment, Muhammed said they then in­flu­ence their peers to be­come in­volved.

“Bad­ness has be­come at­trac­tive and gang in­volve­ment is glo­ri­fied,” he ex­plained.

Con­cern­ing vi­o­lence in schools, Muhammed said stu­dents en­gage in fights to get at­ten­tion. 

“Stu­dents get pop­u­lar when they ap­pear on videos and many suf­fer from poor self-es­teem. They join gangs to feel a sense of be­long­ing,” he added.

Mean­while, the Co­or­di­na­tor of the Siparia Po­lice Youth Club, Sgt Roger Wor­rel, said all schools in the Siparia Dis­trict com­pris­ing nine pri­ma­ry schools and three sec­ondary schools.

“We are con­cerned about the crime sit­u­a­tion and school vi­o­lence. This is one way we are ex­tend­ing our­selves and en­cour­ag­ing har­mo­ny among the stu­dents in all these schools,” he said.

He not­ed that un­der the Chil­dren’s Act, delin­quent chil­dren are now dealt with hu­mane­ly. Wor­rell not­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers work close­ly with the chil­dren in schools and even though some schools still have in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence the Siparia Po­lice Youth Club and the Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing to make in­ter­ven­tions by or­gan­is­ing fun ac­tiv­i­ties for the chil­dren.

He said the Siparia Po­lice Youth Club was the largest in the coun­try com­pris­ing 350 stu­dents. 

Mean­while, ASP Mulchan Nanan said the in­roads made by the Siparia com­mu­ni­ty po­lice have im­pact­ed favourably in their fight against crime. 

“We en­gage these schools dai­ly. We have the li­ai­son of­fi­cers at the schools and we get good re­sults,” he said.

He not­ed that the na­tion­al per­for­mance tar­gets re­gard­ing crime have been met.

“South West­ern Di­vi­sion is a safe Di­vi­sion. Our crime rate is with­in man­age­able lev­els and our de­tec­tion rate is on par with the na­tion­al tar­gets and ex­pec­ta­tions. We have ini­tia­tives in place and we are man­ag­ing the crime at a rea­son­able rate,” Nanan said.

To the youths, he said, “Youths please do the right thing. Some­times the youths get in­volved with the wrong com­pa­ny. We are ap­peal­ing to you to stay away from the wrong com­pa­ny and lis­ten to your el­ders and look for pos­i­tiv­i­ty and not neg­a­tiv­i­ty,” he added. 

The march end­ed with a ral­ly at Ir­win Park, Siparia.