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Bahamas Police Chief Opposes Cops In Public Schools, and Legalizing Gaming For Locals
Related to country: Bahamas

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Top Cop rejects placing police in schools:
By CANDIA DAMES, NG News Editor -
Nassau, Bahamas:


Acting Commissioner of Police Reginald Ferguson expressed opposition to placing police officers in schools, and was against legalizing gaming for Bahamians, when he appeared before the House Select Committee on Crime this week, but he voiced support for capital punishment.

"I really don't agree with policemen in the schools," said Ferguson during the committee hearing at the British Colonial Hilton. "I think if we get to the point where we have to put policemen in the schools, if we determine that's our only salvation, I think it is an indictment on us."

The acting commissioner suggested that placing policemen in schools would give the impression that a police camp or police state exists.

What is needed, he said, is better collaboration between parents and teachers, and he added that administrators ought to have autonomy to deal with disciplinary matters.

Ferguson said the police are currently working with school officials to address security concerns, although officers are not stationed on school campuses.

Committee Chairman Dr. Bernard Nottage, who is the leader of Opposition Business in the House of Assembly, asked Ferguson how a police presence would threaten the autonomy of teachers.

The acting commissioner said, "I think the presence of police on a campus almost automatically interferes in an adverse way." He said police officers are authority figures, more so than teachers.

"And so, it provides that kind of conflict," Ferguson added.

The issue of police officers on school campuses had been a controversial one in the months before and after last year's general election, with former Prime Minister Perry Christie repeatedly touting the benefits of having officers stationed on campuses, and Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham voicing objections to it.

While Christie once brought a large assortment of weapons confiscated from students to the House of Assembly to support his case, Ingraham has said police officers are not baby-sitters and should not be in schools. With a change in government came a change in the policy of school policing, which was abandoned.

Ferguson said Wednesday that there is school policing in the United States, but he said The Bahamas shouldn't put police in schools just because other people do it.

On the issue of legalizing gambling for Bahamians, Ferguson said he is against it. He was responding to a question asked by Kennedy MP Kenyatta Gibson, who is a former chairman of the Gaming Board. Gibson, the only independent member of Parliament, has repeatedly stated his support for a national lottery. He repeated it during Wednesday's hearing when he questioned the acting commissioner.

"There's a school of thought to legalize," Ferguson acknowledged. "I don't agree that we should." He said he could not comprehend how anyone would want to gamble their hard earned money.

"I do not believe that we as a people, as a nation, ought to be [gambling]," Ferguson added, saying that was his personal view.

He insisted that the police do conduct regular raids of numbers houses, but told the committee, "We seem to be the villain whenever we take such action."

The prime minister said in Parliament several months ago, that he had expressed a view to the police commissioner that perhaps gambling should be legalized for Bahamians. His statements in this regard had re-ignited a long-running debate. On the issue of capital punishment, the acting commissioner said while he did not know whether it was a deterrent, he knows it is punishment for murderers.

"From that perspective," he said, "I think we need to carry out capital punishment."

The last hanging in The Bahamas took place in January 2000, when David Mitchell met his fate at the gallows.

September 7, 2008 | 9:54 PM Comments  0 comments

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