Engage our males productively

Lovelette Brooks, News Editor

THEY SPEND hours on the corner, hanging out on the rough end telling stories, dreaming or simply idling.

Branded 'unattached' and 'at risk', this worrying group of approximately 140,000 young people between 14 and 24 years are potential recruits for some 280 deadly criminal gangs currently operating in Jamaica.

None of them are in school, roughly 50,000 of them are unemployed, and just under 80,000 are outside of the labour force, according to the Statistical Institute of Jamaica.

"They are youth at risk (for gun violence and gang membership), and they come from over 34 communities at risk in the Corporate Area," says Dr K'adamawe K'nIfe, lecturer in the Department of Management Studies, University of The West Indies (UWI), in an interview with The Gleaner.

Lure of the gun and gangs

K'nIfe, who grew up in the tough Seaview Gardens community of St Andrew and who knows the lure of the gun and gangs, is behind Youth Crime Watch Jamaica (YCWJ) - a movement to prevent the formation of gangs and the immersion of youths into violent gangs.

"Until the majority of this vulnerable group of youngsters become actively and formally engaged, Jamaica will never solve the problem of gun violence and gangs," K'nIfe states.

"From my experience, as early as age nine, many youngsters are on the trajectory of criminality. When they leave the non-traditional high school at age 14, where do they go? They are ready to move on to the next phase in terms of developing their creativity. The idea of hustling comes readily so they use their creative energy in wrong ways," he notes.

The low rate of criminal apprehention is another reason, cites K'nIfe, why youngsters feel bold enough to engage in criminality.

Data from the the Major Investigation Task Force (MIT) show that since 2006 a total of 1,433 cases of murder and related shootings/woundings have been investigated. Only 553 have been cleared up. One hundred and seventy-eight cases have been submitted for trial and so far eight convictions have been obtained. In 2009, the police investigated 566 of these cases, clearing up 214 of them.

"What they need is access to structures which are necessary to allow them to engage in the formal economic space rather than the informal space. There is no national entrepreneurial policy to help engage young people," K'nIfe says.

To get gangs off the street, Dr KnIfe suggests a workable citizens security and justice programme.

"Any programme of intervention must start from within. Research shows that at-risk youth struggle with complex issues and scenarios that are brought on by peers, mentors, family members, and difficult social environments. Therefore these are the persons/issues to be dealt with, followed by mentorship," explains K'nIfe.

Developing programmes

Youth Crime Watch Jamaica, which is facilitated by students in the entrepreneurship and strategic planning for sustainable development course at UWI, Mona, is active in developing programmes for youth in Dunkirk, Jacques Road, Burgher Gully, Jarrett Lane/Long Mountain, August Town, Elletson Flats, Rockfort and Nannyville.

Each semester, some 400 students leave the hallowed halls of UWI for several inner-city communities where they work and mentor youths.

Kethania Griffiths is 19 and lives in Burgher Gully, Mountain View, St Andrew. She is enthused with the programme.

"The students from UWI have helped us to develop a business for our sports training programme. They also offer mentorship, organise field trips and have been positive in the community overall," she tells The Gleaner.

Samantha Harvey of Nannyville is also grateful for "having the students on board to walk us through planning and organising a proposal to attract funding for a football field. They removed the stumbling blocks".

"The overall vision is to develop a model of sustainable community development, which seeks to prevent the formation of, and entry into violent gangs and to transform existing gang members into partners for enterprise, emphasising the empowering of youth and women in entrepreneurship," says K'nIfe.

Youth Crime Watch Jamaica also has a strong presence in Montego Bay where crime, fuelled by drug smuggling and corruption, has taken root. Allan Bernard, director of YCWJ, and who has been working the trenches in the second city says that lack of meaningful youth employment is a big problem.

"It's the will to survive and hustling becomes attractive. Youths get involved, they earn huge sums of money and they do not see any need for the State. You have 15 year olds handling millions of dollars per day.

"How do you reorient these guys who don't know how to work for what they want?" Bernard asks.

He is confident that through his organisation's 'action for engagement', which involves entrepreneurship training, counselling and mentorship at the grass roots, a difference can be made.

Like K'nIfe, Bernard endorses the partnerships they have created with the UWI, Mona, through the Office of Social Entrepreneurship, the Jamaica Constabulary Force and the National Centre for Youth Development.

lovelette.brooks@gleanerjm.com