Don't Blame the Youth
Common Sense
John Maxwell
We can always 'take back the streets' - but we will have to keep taking them back over and over. The conquest of the Canterbury slum in Montego Bay, Tawes Pen in Spanish Town, August Town or West Kingston will never be concluded by force of arms. Those of us who believe that love rather than guns is the way to change the world really do have some ammunition, and wonder of wonders, some of it is supplied by the World Bank.
For one who regards the World Bank and the IMF as the moral equivalent of the Black Death, I must say that the bank, at least, does make sense from time to time. While its outgoing head, Mr James Wolfensohn, thought that corruption was the most important negative factor in development, and while the bank's policies will keep it in the poverty eradication business for another millennium, some of its less publicly important people do really useful work.
Where the World Bank makes sense is in its research. During the regime of Joe Stiglitz as chief economist, the bank began some important initiatives in extending its knowledge base. The results don't seem to have reached the bank's clients, although some of us might be vastly improved by reading some of the material the bank has published.
Michael Manley and the PNP fought the 1972 general election and won mainly on the issue of reducing crime and violence. Three decades later, Manley's successor, P J Patterson, presides over a country in which nearly five times as many people are being murdered as in 1972 and thousands more are maimed every year. Mr Patterson and his minister of national security Dr Phillips have an answer to all this. We must take back the streets.
According to the World Bank, it may be more appropriate to think of recapturing hearts and minds. They don't use that language, of course.
My references to Canterbury and Tawes Pen were provoked by re-reading two bank documents to which I have referred in past columns. The first is Caribbean Youth Development: Issues and Policy Directions; the other is Determinants of Crime Rates in Latin America and the World.
They are both downloadable from the World Bank's website or others which Google can find for you. The bank's researchers are on the side of the peacemakers - the softies like us who believe that there can be no winners in the class war.
In their paper on the determinants of crime, the World Bank researchers analysed mountains of data from all over the world to come to some conclusions which may seem obvious to some of us, but not at all obvious to our rulers.
First, the researchers understand that criminal activity is a matter of rational choice for potential criminals. They then examine the factors which motivate people to engage in criminal activity - the incentives which persuade people to crime.
They found that income inequality is perhaps the most important factor: economic downturns and other non-economic shocks can raise the crime rate and maintain it at levels unacceptable to societies. Their calculations leave the researchers in no doubt that there are rational economic incentives propelling people toward crime.
If you are at the bottom of society, where a criminal record means nothing adverse, you have nothing to lose by robbing or stealing. The greater the gap between the robber and his target, the more incentive there is for robbery, the greater the likelihood of a good return. The greater the gap between the top and the bottom of society, the greater the incentive to raid the rich. It is not so much poverty that motivates criminals as it is inequity and injustice.
The researchers - Pablo Fajnzylber, Daniel Lederman and Norman Loayza - will justly be pained at the crudity of my presentation of their very sophisticated analysis. All I can offer as excuse is that there is not enough space to treat their work more fairly. I suggest you try to get hold of the document.
The second document, Caribbean Youth Development: Issues and Policy Directions, is perhaps even more important. It makes some astonishing claims and, in my opinion, appears to prove them. One such claim is that a reduction in youth crime of one per cent would directly increase tourism receipts in Jamaica by four per cent.
If that doesn't stun you, you should be investing in the Doomsday Highway.
The lead author of this study, Orsalia Kazantopoulos, says that risky adolescent behaviour in the Caribbean costs us 'billions of dollars. in terms of direct expenditures and forgone productivity" due to crime and HIV/AIDS.
This study, in my view, is clearly justified in proposing that "Investment in preventing any one of these [risky youth behaviours] would have great returns for the country, particularly in the form of higher productivity."
Here are a few of the points made in the study:
The report is unequivocal: Youth is not the problem. We already know that in our hearts, but many of us may only be convinced now that the World Bank says so. What is astonishing is how important the human touch is in achieving real development - development of people instead of concrete.
The report examines the main causes for risky and expensive youth behaviour. It finds these in broken families, broken and inadequate school systems, poverty and gender. These conclusions are not seat-of-the-pants guesses; they are backed by solid research.
The report also suggests a variety of low-tech solutions, many of which resemble what N W Manley began with Jamaica Welfare nearly 70 years ago.
I believe that the Jamaican and Caribbean media should jump on these documents and air them thoroughly so that people armed with relevant facts for the first time at last, can begin a real dialogue about some of the fundamental things wrong with this society.
What I find so compelling about these two documents, and what I think you will find if you read them, is their plain, commonsense approach, not making any of the usual assumptions about culture and other mystification, but looking at what actually happens, and why.
Our treatment of our children is abominable. Great crimes are committed in the name of discipline - serving only to inculcate in the victims a mindless rage which is only temporarily slaked by anti-social behaviour. Yes, the researchers do measure rage, and like every other factor they attempt to quantify its effects. I believe that they are mostly successful.
Every now and then there is an opening in the Jamaican psyche which begs for the inauguration of a real public discussion about our real values and attitudes, and about why these values and those attitudes are not critically examined to see how much damage some may do or how others may be able to help us move forward.
One thing I can say is that if our streets are to run with blood, let it be metaphorical blood from the herds of sacred cows we need to slaughter rather than that of our children who, right now, are being cannibalised by their elders.
John Maxwell
We can always 'take back the streets' - but we will have to keep taking them back over and over. The conquest of the Canterbury slum in Montego Bay, Tawes Pen in Spanish Town, August Town or West Kingston will never be concluded by force of arms. Those of us who believe that love rather than guns is the way to change the world really do have some ammunition, and wonder of wonders, some of it is supplied by the World Bank.
For one who regards the World Bank and the IMF as the moral equivalent of the Black Death, I must say that the bank, at least, does make sense from time to time. While its outgoing head, Mr James Wolfensohn, thought that corruption was the most important negative factor in development, and while the bank's policies will keep it in the poverty eradication business for another millennium, some of its less publicly important people do really useful work.
Where the World Bank makes sense is in its research. During the regime of Joe Stiglitz as chief economist, the bank began some important initiatives in extending its knowledge base. The results don't seem to have reached the bank's clients, although some of us might be vastly improved by reading some of the material the bank has published.
Michael Manley and the PNP fought the 1972 general election and won mainly on the issue of reducing crime and violence. Three decades later, Manley's successor, P J Patterson, presides over a country in which nearly five times as many people are being murdered as in 1972 and thousands more are maimed every year. Mr Patterson and his minister of national security Dr Phillips have an answer to all this. We must take back the streets.
According to the World Bank, it may be more appropriate to think of recapturing hearts and minds. They don't use that language, of course.
My references to Canterbury and Tawes Pen were provoked by re-reading two bank documents to which I have referred in past columns. The first is Caribbean Youth Development: Issues and Policy Directions; the other is Determinants of Crime Rates in Latin America and the World.
They are both downloadable from the World Bank's website or others which Google can find for you. The bank's researchers are on the side of the peacemakers - the softies like us who believe that there can be no winners in the class war.
In their paper on the determinants of crime, the World Bank researchers analysed mountains of data from all over the world to come to some conclusions which may seem obvious to some of us, but not at all obvious to our rulers.
First, the researchers understand that criminal activity is a matter of rational choice for potential criminals. They then examine the factors which motivate people to engage in criminal activity - the incentives which persuade people to crime.
They found that income inequality is perhaps the most important factor: economic downturns and other non-economic shocks can raise the crime rate and maintain it at levels unacceptable to societies. Their calculations leave the researchers in no doubt that there are rational economic incentives propelling people toward crime.
If you are at the bottom of society, where a criminal record means nothing adverse, you have nothing to lose by robbing or stealing. The greater the gap between the robber and his target, the more incentive there is for robbery, the greater the likelihood of a good return. The greater the gap between the top and the bottom of society, the greater the incentive to raid the rich. It is not so much poverty that motivates criminals as it is inequity and injustice.
The researchers - Pablo Fajnzylber, Daniel Lederman and Norman Loayza - will justly be pained at the crudity of my presentation of their very sophisticated analysis. All I can offer as excuse is that there is not enough space to treat their work more fairly. I suggest you try to get hold of the document.
The second document, Caribbean Youth Development: Issues and Policy Directions, is perhaps even more important. It makes some astonishing claims and, in my opinion, appears to prove them. One such claim is that a reduction in youth crime of one per cent would directly increase tourism receipts in Jamaica by four per cent.
If that doesn't stun you, you should be investing in the Doomsday Highway.
The lead author of this study, Orsalia Kazantopoulos, says that risky adolescent behaviour in the Caribbean costs us 'billions of dollars. in terms of direct expenditures and forgone productivity" due to crime and HIV/AIDS.
This study, in my view, is clearly justified in proposing that "Investment in preventing any one of these [risky youth behaviours] would have great returns for the country, particularly in the form of higher productivity."
Here are a few of the points made in the study:
- In terms of foregone benefits, a single cohort of adolescent mothers in St Kitts is estimated to cost US$2 million; St Kitts has less than a tenth of the population of Jamaica.
- Youth crime and violence in St Lucia generates more than US$3 million in lost benefits to society and US$10 million in lost benefits to private individuals, annually.
- If female youth unemployment in Jamaica were reduced to the level of adult unemployment, GDP in Jamaica would rise 2.9 per cent.
Youth is not the Problem
The report is unequivocal: Youth is not the problem. We already know that in our hearts, but many of us may only be convinced now that the World Bank says so. What is astonishing is how important the human touch is in achieving real development - development of people instead of concrete.
The report examines the main causes for risky and expensive youth behaviour. It finds these in broken families, broken and inadequate school systems, poverty and gender. These conclusions are not seat-of-the-pants guesses; they are backed by solid research.
"A key message arising out of the research findings is the interconnectedness of facts that predispose risky behaviour and outcomes. (Emphasis in original) Empirical analysis of risk and protective factors carried out using the nine-country Caricom data demonstrates that complex interrelations among family, school and community factor in the micro-environment. Study results show that changing any one of the risk factors will improve outcomes. The findings are consistent with international evidence."
What we need to do
The report also suggests a variety of low-tech solutions, many of which resemble what N W Manley began with Jamaica Welfare nearly 70 years ago.
- Reform the educational system and maximise the protective effects of schools by improving access and retention, improving the quality of education, eliminating corporal punishment, using educational campaigns to reduce violence and promote conflict resolution; and institutionalising permanent school-based information and education campaigns on sexual abuse and exploitation.
- Upgrading the public health system;
- Institutionalising national level mentoring systems for youth at risk;
- Reforming and strengthening legal, judicial and police systems by improving juvenile justice, increasing the control of weapons and reforming the police;
- Using the media and social marketing to change norms and values related to key risk areas - sexual abuse and exploitation; early sexual initiation; corporal punishment; physical abuse; alcohol consumption; and drug use;
- Making families and fathers a top public policy issue - putting in place measures to make parents more responsible for their children by legal measures and tax breaks and to use the education system, the public health system and the media to teach fundamental parenting skills; and finally;
- Strengthening community and neighbourhood supports to adolescents and their families by establishing youth funds to finance innovative NGO and community-based initiatives for youth.
I believe that the Jamaican and Caribbean media should jump on these documents and air them thoroughly so that people armed with relevant facts for the first time at last, can begin a real dialogue about some of the fundamental things wrong with this society.
What I find so compelling about these two documents, and what I think you will find if you read them, is their plain, commonsense approach, not making any of the usual assumptions about culture and other mystification, but looking at what actually happens, and why.
Our treatment of our children is abominable. Great crimes are committed in the name of discipline - serving only to inculcate in the victims a mindless rage which is only temporarily slaked by anti-social behaviour. Yes, the researchers do measure rage, and like every other factor they attempt to quantify its effects. I believe that they are mostly successful.
Every now and then there is an opening in the Jamaican psyche which begs for the inauguration of a real public discussion about our real values and attitudes, and about why these values and those attitudes are not critically examined to see how much damage some may do or how others may be able to help us move forward.
One thing I can say is that if our streets are to run with blood, let it be metaphorical blood from the herds of sacred cows we need to slaughter rather than that of our children who, right now, are being cannibalised by their elders.
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