Vernon Daley

The society seems almost at the end of its tether in trying to deal with the problem of violent crime that has spread across the country. Whether at the community level, within the family or at the nation's schools, the bloodletting continues with no end in sight.

What we have on our hands is a culture of violence and it's going to take some time and doing to reverse it. Collectively, as a society, we have sat by and allowed the culture to develop. In fact, in many ways it was actively encouraged by some of our leaders to serve narrow political ends. Now, the monster bestrides the land like a colossus.

It's not a problem without a solution but we're unlikely to make any progress with it by attacking symptoms instead of causes.

Take, for example, recent media reports about two Ardenne High School students who were attacked by a set of schoolboys who robbed them of mobile phones. We were told that one of the Ardenne students was stabbed in the chest while the other was beaten with a hockey stick during the robbery.

This is a very tragic thing and I hope the young men will recover fully. It was sad to hear the attackers were from my alma mater, Jamaica College. But I was sadder, still, when I heard the response of the Ardenne family to the incident. They decided they would ban students from carrying mobile phones.

According to them, the students are routinely targeted when they walk down to Half-Way Tree from their school and therefore banning the phones would make them less attractive to robbers.

Effectiveness of the move

It's understandable that parents and school administrations wanted to take some immediate action given the seriousness of the incident. But, I'm in doubt about the effectiveness of the move they've made. The problem is not mobile phones. If the students have no phones then they are likely to be attacked and beaten for something else - their lunch money, perhaps.

This is not to condemn Ardenne for searching for some means of protecting its students but the approach the school has employed is indicative of the way the society has skirted around dealing with the root causes of its troubles, including the nagging problem of violent crime.

There are people in some parts of the society who experience nothing but crime and violence on a daily basis. I know a young man who lives in one such area and he tells me he has mostly been sleeping on the floor for the past few months to avoid being struck by stray bullets as rival gangs battle in the streets.

When children grow up in those circumstances, it's nothing short of a miracle when they still manage to make something of their lives. Many of the young men from these areas turn out to be a nightmare for the rest of the society, sharing with the rest of us the violence they have lived.

There are many things the society has to focus on to bring this problem under control and one of them is placing serious emphasis on improving neglected communities across the country that are pumping out youths who are well schooled in the ways of violence.