tribune242 editorial
ANY POLITICAL party that tells a community that Urban Renewal, whether it be Urban Renewal 2.0 or 4.04, is a quick fix for this country's crime problem is fooling the people by encouraging them to clutch at moonbeams.
This is not to denigrate Urban Renewal, which is a long-term solution, the effects of which will probably not be able to be properly assessed until the next generation.
However, for those who want to see the ugly head of crime crushed with the utmost speed, community policing is one of the many answers. In fact, community policing - the initiative of the Royal Bahamas Police Force - morphed into Urban Renewal and, unfortunately, into the arms of politicians during the Christie administration.
We have been told that the Urban Renewal programme received an international award. In fact, it was not Urban Renewal that received the award from the International Association of Commissioners of Police (IACP). Rather, it was the Royal Bahamas Police Force. And this was how their community initiative was described in the IACP's 1999-2006 report: "The Royal Bahamas Police Force worked with area residents to form a community task force comprising officers, members of local churches, the business community, residents, and reformed gang members. The task force patrolled the streets on foot, and in vehicles 24 hours a day, seven days a week, leaving criminals little time or space in which to operate."
Now this is where Urban Renewal came in: "The task force," said the IACP, "also worked with the Departments of Social Services, Housing, Environmental Health, and Public Works to improve living conditions."
One of the award winners was Farm Road's marching band, started by the police with the assistance of business persons. There was no political affiliation with this programme. The boast today of the Eastern Division's marching band, again a police creation, is that they are of award-winning standard. When Urban Renewal came along, the police continued their community policing programmes, but got diverted to add muscle to the work of social workers who government had introduced into the various communities under the name of Urban Renewal. Of course, things moved more efficiently when backed by a police officers' orders.
For example, if an Environmental department employee gave instructions for the removal of derelict cars, they could expect some "lip". But for the order to come from a police officer, it was a "yes, suh" and a shuffle into speedy action.
However, one of the many criticisms of what is now known as Urban Renewal was that the workers who were attached to the programme were especially selected by PLP politicians. It was soon discovered that serious people were sitting around a table having discussions with persons who could hardly read or write.
It did not take the Ingraham administration long to understand how community policing had been hijacked. As a result, the police were removed from the social services side of the programmes and sent back to doing what they did best and for which they had won an international award -- community policing. That does not mean that if needed the various social services cannot call on them for assistance. They are called on, and they do respond.
According to Mr Christie, the urban renewal programme established by his government offered people hope. It had had noteworthy results in communities in which it had been established. He promised that if returned he would renew Urban Renewal with a stepped-up programme -- Urban Renewal 2.0.
"There is a compelling need in this country for us to recognise that we are out of control with crime and that we do know the influences that are affecting the young people," Mr Christie told members of the House in discussing the various crime bills then being debated.
Meanwhile, the police are continuing with their community programmes - among them after-school programmes for young people. There are the after-school programmes in the Eastern Division, highlighting Fox Hill, the Western Division, and the Central division with the 242 model programme for young people with behavioural challenges. The Southern Division has included in its programmes a Crime Watch Group for business persons to assist them in patrolling their businesses.
And so social services -- a branch of Urban Renewal -- continues with its programmes in the communities, while the police are now free to step up their community programmes in addition to tracking down criminals.
November 01, 2011
tribune242 editorial
A political blog about Bahamian politics in The Bahamas, Bahamian Politicans - and the entire Bahamas political lot. Bahamian Blogger Dennis Dames keeps you updated on the political news and views throughout the islands of The Bahamas without fear or favor. Bahamian Politicians and the Bahamian Political Arena: Updates one Post at a time on Bahamas Politics and Bahamas Politicans; and their local, regional and international policies and perspectives.
Showing posts with label Bahamas community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bahamas community. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
The only way that we can rid ourselves of crime is to get back to basics -- discipline, good manners, hard work, respect and love for our God, our parents, ourselves, our neighbours, our community
tribune242 editorial
WHEN WE first joined The Tribune more than fifty years ago, there were no files that contained a business contract anywhere in the then small building. All transactions were the result of a gentleman's agreement sealed with a handshake. It seemed to work fairly well.
Today progress has brought written contracts, but there are times when they are not worth the paper they are written on. Recently, when we spoke with someone on behalf of a person who was having difficulty collecting payment for work he had completed, we were informed by the person who was dealing with the payment that if the matter went to court, the company would be closed and the complainant would get nothing. That's justice and honest business dealings for you, but it is also progress ... after all we do have written contracts. However, in the interim we have lost integrity, honesty, and a sense of responsibility.
We have graduated from the age when children were "seen, but not heard" to a society of vocal, often rebellious and destructive youth. They respect no one -- not even themselves-- many believing that whatever they want they can steal from a hard working neighbour. After all during the narco years, when drugs were the going currency, didn't a cabinet minister in the heat of a public gruelling, blurt out that it was nobody's business how he made his money -- whether he worked for it or t'iefed it? School essays expressed the ambition of many children that they wanted to follow the career path of their fathers, uncles or brothers as drug dealers. In those years drugs seemed to open a magic door to wealth and upward social movement. Man's lofty spirit was debased by materialism.
Need we wonder why crime is out of control. Today we are being held hostage by the products of those years.
We have problems in our schools, and we wonder why. Discipline, common courtesy and respect have all but disappeared from the schoolyard. Why, we ask? We remember a time when if a child were disciplined at school he took his punishment and made no complaint at home, because he knew that more punishment would follow for disrespecting his teacher or breaking school rules. Not so today. The precious little darlings trot home with a tale of woe and the next day a rowdy parent marches to the school to beat up the teacher. No need to wonder what's wrong with today's youth -- just look to the parents. There are no longer rules for them, discipline has gone out of the window, the child gets what he or she wants.
They looked down on honest labour. We recall a day when a mother telephoned asking us to do a story about a hotel whose manager had the effrontery to ask her daughter to scrub a dirty floor. She had called the wrong person for sympathy. The only way that we knew how to get a dirty floor clean, despite all the modern gadgets, was to get on hands and knees and give it a good scrubbing. Having done it ourselves while at school in England, we saw nothing wrong with it. No wonder in those years the government-owned hotels looked so distressingly shabby.
The late Sir Lynden Pindling lived long enough to accept that his beliefs in making life too easy for the youth was their undoing. "We are falling backward with sophistication, because we have got slack and we've got lazy and we've got sophisticated over these last 20 years and that's our fault. I accept responsibility for that," he said.
He might have accepted responsibility, but today we are suffering from those years of over indulgence when good manners, hard work, honesty, and discipline was undermined.
Sir Lynden lived long enough to understand why Haitians had to be employed to do the work that Bahamians once did. He was distressed when told by the "new" Bahamian that "Haitians supposed to do that."
"We told them that they were too good to be gardeners, too good to be sanitation men, too good to work with their hands..." Sir Lynden admitted.
"But, I didn't know then what I know now, that any work breeds character. Too many young men lack character today; too many, too often shirk responsibility because they have never been held accountable for their actions at home, in school or in society. Therein may lie the heart of the problem," he admitted.
The only way that we can rid ourselves of crime is to get back to basics -- discipline, good manners, hard work, respect and love for our God, our parents, ourselves, our neighbours, our community.
We have to dust off the Ten Commandments and teach them to our children from the cradle.
In other words our misplaced progress has led us astray. As a community we have to start all over again.
We cannot afford to wait. Now is the time.
August 09, 2011
tribune242 editorial
WHEN WE first joined The Tribune more than fifty years ago, there were no files that contained a business contract anywhere in the then small building. All transactions were the result of a gentleman's agreement sealed with a handshake. It seemed to work fairly well.
Today progress has brought written contracts, but there are times when they are not worth the paper they are written on. Recently, when we spoke with someone on behalf of a person who was having difficulty collecting payment for work he had completed, we were informed by the person who was dealing with the payment that if the matter went to court, the company would be closed and the complainant would get nothing. That's justice and honest business dealings for you, but it is also progress ... after all we do have written contracts. However, in the interim we have lost integrity, honesty, and a sense of responsibility.
We have graduated from the age when children were "seen, but not heard" to a society of vocal, often rebellious and destructive youth. They respect no one -- not even themselves-- many believing that whatever they want they can steal from a hard working neighbour. After all during the narco years, when drugs were the going currency, didn't a cabinet minister in the heat of a public gruelling, blurt out that it was nobody's business how he made his money -- whether he worked for it or t'iefed it? School essays expressed the ambition of many children that they wanted to follow the career path of their fathers, uncles or brothers as drug dealers. In those years drugs seemed to open a magic door to wealth and upward social movement. Man's lofty spirit was debased by materialism.
Need we wonder why crime is out of control. Today we are being held hostage by the products of those years.
We have problems in our schools, and we wonder why. Discipline, common courtesy and respect have all but disappeared from the schoolyard. Why, we ask? We remember a time when if a child were disciplined at school he took his punishment and made no complaint at home, because he knew that more punishment would follow for disrespecting his teacher or breaking school rules. Not so today. The precious little darlings trot home with a tale of woe and the next day a rowdy parent marches to the school to beat up the teacher. No need to wonder what's wrong with today's youth -- just look to the parents. There are no longer rules for them, discipline has gone out of the window, the child gets what he or she wants.
They looked down on honest labour. We recall a day when a mother telephoned asking us to do a story about a hotel whose manager had the effrontery to ask her daughter to scrub a dirty floor. She had called the wrong person for sympathy. The only way that we knew how to get a dirty floor clean, despite all the modern gadgets, was to get on hands and knees and give it a good scrubbing. Having done it ourselves while at school in England, we saw nothing wrong with it. No wonder in those years the government-owned hotels looked so distressingly shabby.
The late Sir Lynden Pindling lived long enough to accept that his beliefs in making life too easy for the youth was their undoing. "We are falling backward with sophistication, because we have got slack and we've got lazy and we've got sophisticated over these last 20 years and that's our fault. I accept responsibility for that," he said.
He might have accepted responsibility, but today we are suffering from those years of over indulgence when good manners, hard work, honesty, and discipline was undermined.
Sir Lynden lived long enough to understand why Haitians had to be employed to do the work that Bahamians once did. He was distressed when told by the "new" Bahamian that "Haitians supposed to do that."
"We told them that they were too good to be gardeners, too good to be sanitation men, too good to work with their hands..." Sir Lynden admitted.
"But, I didn't know then what I know now, that any work breeds character. Too many young men lack character today; too many, too often shirk responsibility because they have never been held accountable for their actions at home, in school or in society. Therein may lie the heart of the problem," he admitted.
The only way that we can rid ourselves of crime is to get back to basics -- discipline, good manners, hard work, respect and love for our God, our parents, ourselves, our neighbours, our community.
We have to dust off the Ten Commandments and teach them to our children from the cradle.
In other words our misplaced progress has led us astray. As a community we have to start all over again.
We cannot afford to wait. Now is the time.
August 09, 2011
tribune242 editorial
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