Judging our youth
published: Monday | August 4, 2003

THE EDITOR, Sir:

WHAT IS expected of the Jamaican youth?

I don't know what to think: a young man, 19 years old, takes the entrance test to be admitted into the Jamaica Constabulary Force and is successful, meeting all the standards required of a JCF applicant. He passes the interview he was selected to do, and after all the expenses of travelling to Kingston he was not granted acceptance into the Force.

He has the required educational background, he has the necessary documents, he is of the required height, he's physically fit but he's turned down. Why? Because of where he is from, because his cousin is on a murder trial, because he knows someone who does drugs, because he is from a violent neighbourhood. So, am I to understand that he is to become a thief or a murderer or drug dealer all because he knows people who are involved in such activities?

Are we expected to live what we learn? In what sense? In the sense that we are taught to be ambitious and to strive for the best, rise above our problems and struggle our way out of the poverty-stricken slums that some of us grew up in? Or are we supposed to become nothing and live like the worst and adapt to the situations around us? We as young people don't decide where we live and no one decides to whom we are related, but what we as young people can decide is what we make of our future and what we do with our lives. It helps none when those who are in the position to help us make something of our lives, turn us down.

To the recruiting officers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, when you make decisions like these you push young people in the wrong direction. It seems as if they would rather harass and arrest us than have us become the crime- fighting, law-abiding citizens that our country so craves for.

I am, etc.,

D. WALKER

KinaeOO@yahoo.com

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