New ways of thinking needed to address crime, DPM Pratt says:


Bahamas Information Services -
Nassau, Bahamas:

NASSAU, The Bahamas – Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Security the Hon. Cynthia Pratt said that the traditional approaches to dealing with crime must be replaced with new ways of thinking “out of the box.”

“For example, from a government standpoint, we have conveniently compartmentalized the issues that affect our state into categories called ministries and departments,” Minister Pratt said. “But the problems that we face today are increasingly multidisciplinary, requiring greater and almost seamless inter-ministerial cooperation and coordination.”

Deputy Prime Minister Pratt was speaking at the first annual International Crime Summit on August 28, 2006. The Royal Bahamas Police Force, hosted the event under the theme “Enforcing the fight against crime, violence and social ills through global collaboration.”

The Deputy Prime Minister said it was “simplistic and wrong” to believe that the police, by themselves, can stop crime or that the Defence Force is able to solve the problem of illegal immigration, or that the prison service is able to reduce the high recidivism rate.

“What we have grown to realize is that the solution to the problem of crime is as comprehensive as the problem itself,” Deputy Prime Minister Pratt said. “The solution requires the deployment of our best minds, working together in synergy, to develop strategies and initiatives to bring remedial action to those conditions and circumstances that give rise to crime and give birth to criminals.”

Deputy Prime Minister Pratt said the State must deploy its entire machinery in this fight and the crime stakeholders must also develop and foster partnerships with “non-State actors, non-governmental organizations and all of civil society.”

“That is the bulwark that will surely strengthen our approach to dealing with the ‘hyrda’ called crime,” she said.

Deputy Prime Minister Pratt said that this comprehensive and holistic approach is “epitomized and given splendid expression” in the Urban Renewal Programme, the brainchild of Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Perry G. Christie.

She noted that Prime Minister Christie said that while he was in Opposition, he “mused at the sad and depressed state in our inner-city neighbourhoods and how those residents lived a vicious cycle of birth, hopelessness, despair and death.”

She said this had crystallized in the Prime Minister’s mind the concept of an urban renewal programme -- a community-based initiative that micro-analyses the issues and circumstances that prevent residents from realizing their true potential and then, more importantly, bring about remedial action.

“When the Urban Renewal Programme was launched in 2002, many scoffed at the idea of using police officers to do what they described as mere social work,” Deputy Prime Minister Pratt said. “I believe that those persons would be hard pressed to argue that where the programme has been instituted, criminal activity has been reduced and residents generally feel better about their surroundings and their prospects for a more useful, productive and meaningful life.”

She noted that for three consecutive years, the Commissioner of Police and the Royal Bahamas Police Force have been the proud recipients of the distinguished International Association of Chiefs of Police Award for Community Policing.

“The spotlight has been put on this unique initiative and it has held up well to its glare and scrutiny.

“But, in spite of this, we recognize that a whole lot more needs to be done to rid our communities of crime,” Minister Pratt added. “We realize also that we have only skimmed the surface of the tremendous potential of the Urban renewal Programme.

“We now need to build on it and expand it. Its goal must be to remove those conditions that give rise to crime and prevent crime before it occurs.”

08/30/2006

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