NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Local gang leaders have said that they will not sit around to be targeted by others due to what they perceive as an unsatisfactory judicial system, according to Ministry of National Security Crime Consultant Carlos Reid.
Reid said that he has been in communication with local gang leaders in an attempt to curb rising violence that police have previously described as turf wars.
He challenged the spate of gun crime that has pushed the country’s homicide count into the triple digits, was not gang-related but the result of attempts at vigilante justice.
“Basically what the leaders saying is that they don’t want to be sitting ducks like they ain’t ga wait on nobody what may come to take them out,” Reid said.
“So basically what we have is people paid the need to defend themselves because we have a system that is not providing the kind of justice that it needs to provide in order for persons to feel comfortable that they don’t have to take justice into their own hands.”
Reid added that with over 300 people out on bail for murder, many feel justified in what they see as self-defense or vigilante justice.
He explained that based on their findings from investigations many of the people committing murder are not in gangs, but killing as a result of personal grievances.
“They are not getting timely justice they feel the necessity to take justice into their own hands, to take matters into their own hands and find their own justice.
“[…] a lot of these are not gang-related. A lot of these situations, sometimes, be from law-abiding citizens that feel like they are not getting the kind of justice that they should be getting.”
The crux of the problem is that the backlog of pending cases must be fixed, according to the Hope Center Pastor, who explained that people should be taken to court at a reasonable date to avoid becoming victims or perpetrators of murder.
He disagrees with the notion that people should be denied bail because he believes that bail is a person’s constitutional right.
“Bail is not the issue. The issue is that we have to take these persons to court in a reasonable amount of time where there’s no need to have bail as a question,” Reid said.
In 2015, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved a $20 mil loan to the Bahamas’ government to aid in the reduction of crime.
Reid referenced the loan, stating “that $20 mil stayed inside the bank, they didn’t spend that money”.
The funds were allotted to ‘help reduce crime and violence’ through the establishment of a number of initiatives. Reid recalled the Swift Justice Program, Violence Interrupters, and seven youth community centers in the hotspots in the capital to name a few.
In 2015, an IDB release said: “Many victims are young and male, and killed with firearms. Violence is especially acute in the island of New Providence, where the capital, Nassau, is located, with high rates of murders, armed robberies, and rapes.”
The IDB continued: “Recent statistics points to a prevalence of violence to solve inter-personal and community disputes, especially among youth. This is occurring in a context of high unemployment rates (30.8 percent in 2014 among 15-24-year-olds), slow court systems, and high rates of recidivism.”
Reid said that the programs that were supposed to help in solving the problems were never initiated, and now they need to be looked at again.
“We lost about six years because […] we play politics with our affairs too much rather than looking at what is good for the country we get caught up in who institute it, who initiate it, we need to stop that,” he said.
“[…] You know this crime problem is not an FNM or a PLP problem, this is a people problem and if we don’t fix this problem The Bahamas will be in some serious trouble.
In the meantime, Reid said that their concentration has shifted more toward the schools as they seek additional modes of prevention.
Reid said: “What we are finding is that they are asking these young people to behave but they haven’t been taught how to behave, for instance, if a child don’t know math, you teach them math, they don’t know English you teach them English but when they don’t know how to behave, we punish them.”
He said they will kick off a seminar next Wednesday at the Hope Center where over 100 young men will be taught lessons in conflict resolution, anger management, and choice management.
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