Exploring the Root Causes of Crime and Homicide: Education, Values, and Cultural Impact

The question on many people’s lips is: “Why so much crime and homicide?” and for some it’s followed by, “What can be done?”

The second question is being answered simplistically with recommendations for increased and more effective policing, a crime unit and exhortations to those criminally inclined. This was eloquently and passionately done by the prime minister recently. While this may or may not help to get the horses back into the stable, of greater importance in the long term for the future of the nation, is the first question, and the implications.

The causes of our now endemic high levels of crime are obviously multi-factorial, and fall under four main heads:

Failure of primary education, leading inevitably to failure of secondary education, Failure of the churches to relate to those in the younger decades, and hence abandonment of the desired values, The collapse of family life for many, and The relentless degeneration of our culture, actively promoted at some levels, with materialism and selfishness as the new standards of behaviour.

The failure of between 30 and 50 per cent of 11-year-olds in the Common Entrance exam for decades has been ignored by successive ministries of education, and little if anything done to remedy it; instead, these statistics have not been published for some years until they were reputedly leaked this year and acknowledged. The consequence of large numbers of semi-literate and semi-numerate children progressing to secondary school is for large numbers to leave with no certification or skills and to end up on the block, in gangs, and in illegal employment. This is by far the top priority for education reform, not the irrelevant proposal for middle and senior schools, as every teacher knows. We need to understand the reasons for this enormous, unacceptable failure rate. URGENT evaluations must be done. We saw it and did nothing.

The failure of the churches to attract young people is not new. The absence of young adults, teenagers and children in the traditional churches – often of anyone under middle age – is not new. It happened gradually over several decades. The ritual and theology do not appeal to younger people. At the other end of the spectrum, the evangelical/Pentecostal churches with often seemingly threatening messages of fire and brimstone, hell and damnation, do not resonate either. Lengthy Sunday sermons, whether intellectual and dull or fiery shouting, don’t do the job intended. The churches must get out into the community, connect, communicate, counsel and succour, if ethical values are to be restored. We saw it coming and did nothing. There are a few churches and community leaders whose approaches should be followed and multiplied.

The third huge, underpinning problem is the collapse of family life for so many. The promotion, even exaltation of casual sex, with the result of “children having children”, to borrow a phrase of the late Professor George Nicholson thirty years or more ago, has created a crisis of parenting, or the lack of healthy parenting. The absence of a father in a home has been shown unequivocally to have devastating effects on the children, especially boys, damaging their mental, academic and social development. PAREDOS has done its best, but far greater and multi-faceted efforts must be made to re-educate and support society in returning to healthy families as the norm. We saw it and did nothing.

Finally, there has been a progressive degeneration in the values, the mores and the behaviour of many people in our country — many would say the majority, but I am more positive. We have become possibly the biggest party country in the Caribbean, outdoing our Trini neighbours, with “a bevy of festivals” and constant fetes. Our much-vaunted Bajan “culture” often amounts to nothing more than calypso, rude songs and “wukking up” – at Kadooment, elsewhere and even in primary schools, so that the recent video scandal is likely but the tip of the iceberg. Anything goes. We’ve seen it coming and done nothing.

While the police and others in the community continue to do their very best, it is time to tackle these four critical areas seriously.

Professor Emeritus Sir Henry Fraser is a former educator, architectural historian, author and mentor.