Est.2007

Barbados Underground

Bringing News and Opinions to the People

Internet Town Hall on Crime & Violence – All Are Invited

← Back

Your message to the BLOGMASTER was sent

CONTACT THE BLOGMASTER ONLY

With the tranquil landscape of Barbados being routinely disturbed by a culture of gun violence an unprecedented murder rate.  Civil society is being encouraged to frankly discuss short term and long term measures to implement to arrest the trending. BU commenter Greene posted the following measures (with minor edits by the blogmaster) to kickoff Barbados Underground Internet Town Hall on Crime & Violence – How to Arrest it NOW.

– David, Barbados Underground

Short term measures

  1. Come right out and tell Bajans that the young men in some areas are murderers and are terrorising BIM by killing one another and if they continue so the Govt will have to invite people in BIM to take their place in BIM.
  2. Tell them that the illegal drug trade and reprisals are responsible for murders. that the guns are coming through the Port and that any government officials including but not limited to politicians, police and customs involved and caught will be punished severely. Change the official corruption laws to suit.
  3. Tell mothers and women by accepting drug money and turning a blind eye to the activities of their sons and boyfriends that they part of the problem.
  4. Enforce or implement Money Laundering and asset forfeiture Laws
  5. Second half the Defence Force to the police as patrol units in hot spot with a view to engage and challenge suspected drug and gun men/dealers based on intelligence in the first place and observation when they are in the area.
  6. Actually engage and if fired upon shoot to kill taking into consideration threats to their own lives and dangers posed to others in the area.
  7. Speedy Trials
  8. Look to pop some necks even if it means changing the laws.
  9. Discuss openly about what is causing the problems and solicit solutions.
  10. Seek a truce between warring factions with a forum where where they can confront each other in a neutral setting (do not know if this is possible).
  11. Look at witnesses protection with a view to sending those who qualify to other participatory islands/ countries.
  12. Provide and lease farm land to young men and women who say they have nothing to do.
  13. Teach civics from primary school with an established set of ideals that we expect from Bajans.

And I would say all this to the public.

Long term

  1. Look to change the school system to make it more hands on for boys with more technical subjects.
  2. Revert to single sex schools
  3. Provide counselling or more counselling for troubled youths and parents with early intervention programmes.
  4. Improve the lot of the police by paying them more and making the service more attractive. If the Government says they have no money they can exempt police, fire and prisons (emergency services) from income taxes and provide free health care at any private facility.
  5. Disband the Defence Force and recruit those who want to and are qualified into the police, fire service and prisons.
  6. Change corruption and other associated laws.
  7. Make marijuana legal for anyone over 18.
  8. Decriminalize other hard drugs treating them as a health issue and not a legal issue.
  9. Alter all the above from time to time to suit the changing circumstances.
  10. Look to improve the long term economic and employment situation.

Discover more from Barbados Underground

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

203 responses to “Internet Town Hall on Crime & Violence – All Are Invited”

  1. Tron Avatar
    Tron

    If anything’s criminal, it’s the massive increase in land tax, thanks to former MoF Chris Sinckler and his very retarded policy.

    I know people who have received a bill of 10,000 or 20,000 dollars in May. That’s what I call a harsh loss. Unlike the whining of some islanders who in the past only voted for DLP and now wonder that s*** is flying around their ears.

    And what do they pay $20,000 for??? To feed lazy civil servants who just polish their fingernails all day long.

    It is time for Mia Mottley to take the lead in the villa owners’ protest march against the apologists of the Barbadian welfare state. Let’s march to the palaces of the DLP, the unions and the bureaucrats of the welfare state. Let us tear down their palaces and free the taxpayer from the merciless grip of the Hydra called welfare state.

    It will not be long before we have a civil war in which the taxpayers defend themselves against the civil servants and other boarders of the welfare state.

  2. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ Sirsimple

    Ok let me ask you to consider this approach instead and tell me what you think.

    Suppose we legalise the holding of marijuana to a small Amount say 2 spliffs for argument sake. But then we increase substantially the fines for those caught with trafficable amounts as outlined by the law I suggested ?

    If you take the amount at Dodds for having small Amounts of weed on them and remove them from the system where they are now mixing with hardened criminals and murderers, you don’t think that would be a start at least?

    Not criticising your view just asking your opinion on my alternative that’s all.

  3. SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife Avatar
    SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife

    @Tron

    I live in a village.

    I have always lived in a village.

    I have no gate, no gun, no dog.

    I will be paying 8% more land tax this year.

    I have been paying land tax since 1978.

    I expect to be paying land tax for another 20 or 30 years. My parents started paying land tax from way back in the 1930’s, my father’s mother and her siblings paid land tax at least from the beginning of the 20th century.

    I have NEVER used, bought, sold, or accepted as a gift any marijuana, cocaine or other illegal substance.

    Do I deserve protection also?

    Do I deserve to be safe in my home, and do I deserve to be safe when I walk the roads?

  4. Vincent Codrington Avatar
    Vincent Codrington

    @ John A at 2:06 PM

    Seems as though I anticipated this question. The answer is at 1 :52 PM. The urge to fight has nothing to do with acquiring an education. We would need to flush out the causes of the aggressive behaviour and deal with them.

    But the behaviour is disruptive to the rest of the class. This needs to be pointed out to the combatants and get there agrreement to cease and desist ,otherwise…….

  5. John A Avatar
    John A

    Also if new laws and incarceration are the answer how come the 3 countries with the most restrictions on its people have the largest prison population? Clearly that approach does not serve as a deterrent as the below 3 lead the list when it comes to prison populations globally.

    USA
    RUSSIA
    CHINA

    As I said just asking a question not criticising anyone’s argument.

  6. David Avatar
    David

    @Vincent & John A

    The problem of the day is not rooted in any one problem. Education if defined broadly as the ability to leverage knowledge to create a sustainable way of life then of course it is an important determinant in fashioning an acceptable way of life.

  7. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ Vincent

    That is my point exactly when I say separating the 4 who want to fight from the class is pointless. Yes it may be a temporary answer for that class there and then but check the fallout on the society down the road.

    Then again we are a society of patch it as opposed to fix it so I guess this topic is no different sadly.

  8. de pedantic Dribbler Avatar
    de pedantic Dribbler

    Thank you @Simple, I have learned much this day from your remarks…just as I often do when I read the exposées from @John the scholar: ie, when you guys are primed you make some of the most wild and unverified statements imaginable !

    Can you add any colour (any semblance of empirical notes or even anecdotal data) to substantiate the incredulously self serving comment: “The truth is every Bajan man who is a real-real man has a gun, has had a gun, or has aspired to hold a gun….Gun ownership is a “rite of passage” for Bajan men.”

    Anecdotal: In the neighborhood of my youth I believe only three of the men in that cluster owned a gun…one was a retired cop, another a business owner and sought a permit due to the cash he teansported at night to the bank drop bos deposit. That’s 30%. Am I to presume the others were not real-real men! SMH.

    Similarly, of that group I only recall one being a smoker… and he started smoking while overseas and then just as abruptly quit the habit after he found himself admonishing his sons not to smoke!

    Oh..and to that latter cohort of the crew his sons ran with – of the broadly 10 plus on and off – only four smoked… what rite of passage blarney are you spreading!

    I saw smoking as a rebellious thing …never ANY manhood thing…but on seconds thoughts I now realize I did aspire to hold and shoot my gun …. but I always owned that one and still do…my aim and effectiveness at the range with it has detoriated markedly though!

    I now realize you were mekking sport… I gone!

  9. Tron Avatar
    Tron

    @ SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife June 15, 2019 2:29 PM

    As you know, I deliberately use cynical phrases.

    Yes, damn it, yes: All peaceful taxpayers have a right to security.

    What I meant to say: If the tax burden rises even more, the work ethic will go completely towards zero. We can no longer afford to burn any more money for the big welfare state.

  10. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ David

    We are not discussing education only but using it as an example to show how a failed education system shares common failures with a failed court and penal system.

    Again don’t focus solely on what is stated but expand it to our bigger issues as a society. What we are saying is that all of the major issues of education, the court system and the penal system all suffer from the same failings.

  11. David Avatar
    David

    @John A

    Where we differ is that education must be the focus as William will agree. It has become irrelevant/redundant/obsolete to support the requirements of efficiently managing all the other sections of the society you mentioned and more. What is preventing the fundamental changes required to dismantle the status quo in education is cultural.

    Are you keeping up John A?

  12. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ John A

    The best explanation I have ever come across of the Bajan condition is one from over 2000 years ago – Plato’s Allegory. I had a tutor explaining it to me and I remember the light bulb moment to this day. Read his allegory of the cave.

  13. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ David.

    It is hard to keep up when one is ahead thus I shall slow down, but I digress my apologies.

    No one is questioning the failed education system but what some of us are doing is linking it to a failed judicial system and penal system by saying that all 3 issues have at their core similar causes for their failures.

    We must therefore address all 3 issues if we are to see any real progress as a society. If we don’t it’s the equivalent of taking the problem kids and isolating them from the rest, only to have them reunite down the road at Dodds the university for Crime!

  14. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ Hal

    I can only try but sometimes like you I find the wall too tall. Lol

    Thanks for the encouragement though.

  15. David Avatar
    David

    @John A

    And the point you are missing is that an irrelevant education system is at the root of all the other problems we are discussing.

    Carry on dear John.

  16. SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife Avatar
    SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife

    @Robert Lucas at 5:59 a.m.

    Arthur cried in court.

    Pile did not cry, in fact she asked others not to cry for her.

    Men are soft…unless they have a gun in hand.

    Women are truly tough.

    Some of the drug “lords” cry when they get up to Dodds too. The women do not cry.

    As far as I am concerned everybody should be granted bail, until the court is ready to pass sentence.

    But men soft.

    Crying is for men, and..

    Babies.

    NOBODY has ever seen me cry.

  17. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ John A

    It is a mind set. I call it cultural. But you may have the last word, as some of us say (an idiocy that sums up a lack of reason in our popular culture).

  18. John A Avatar
    John A

    David no one is saying not, the difference is you want solely to look at the education system when others are looking at the total picture, thus incorporating it into societies issues on the whole.

    I am not faulting your view just expanding it to show how the failure to upgrade our education system is not unique in our society to any one sector. We have also failed to update the upgrade of our court and penal system resulting in our citizens whether they be 16 or 60 having to pay the price.

    What is so difficult to understand about that or is the obvious link too difficult for us to accept?

    We have basically been unable to keep up with reform in any of the 3 systems is therefore the obvious conclusion one must accept. I am not blaming any one party either if that would make the reality more easy for some to accept.

  19. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ Hal

    Yes I sadly see your point and having tried to share with those willing to see the bigger picture, I shall now retire to the viewers gallery.

  20. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    People cry for a variety of reasons, including out of frustration. The slaves also cried at their powerlessness. Being governed by a group of self-conscious buffoons will make anyone cry, male or female

  21. SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife Avatar
    SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife

    @Talking Loud… at 8:15 a.m.

    Black Barbadians have experienced cyclical famines throughout Barbados’ history. Most of us are still just one failed rainy season from famine. My own brother had a coffin build for him in 1941. He as a toddler was so near to death from hunger, that my parents were prepared to bury him

    The worst TransAtlantic hurricane EVER struck Barbados in 1780 and killed 10% of the population.

    We don’t need more famines, we don’t need more natural disasters, we don’t need more hangings, we don’t need more murders.

    Haven’t we all suffered enough already?

    A people who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.

    We, my brother is still alive, but many of his generation died as infants. During that period 25% of Bajan infants did not make it to adulthood. We have suffered enough. We have suffered more that enough. Some of your great aunts and uncles you did not get to know, because they died as babies. My parents died in the 21st century. Do you think that they and others enjoyed seeing their children starve, some to death in the Barbados of the 1930’s and 40’s? Our foreparents are the survivors of the worst Atlantic hurricane ever.

    Why do so many people seem to feel that if only we suffered some more that we would become better people?

    What if suffering makes people worse, rather than better?

    Sometimes I feel like a voice crying in the wilderness

  22. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ John A

    The trick is to ignore this generation and communicate with the future. Most of the BU rumshop are incapable of change. That explains what @William calls the duopoly. The same mind set; same schools; same rum shops. The insularity of a small island. Look at the learning environment: no good bookshops; no good television, radio or newspapers; learning by osmosis.

  23. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ Hal

    Then we are Destin among those to be fighting a losing battle with regard to true change?

    I find people do not like to broaden discussions outside of their personal parameters on a topic either. That to me is sad as it limits us to discussing only the small jar we are in from the confines of its interior, as opposed to standing on the outside and looking at the said jar in its totality.

    If you have a problem child at school who on leaving School then has a problem at work, who then gets involved in criminal activity and then faces a problem court system, that then confines him to a problem penal system, how can one separate one issue by not seeing the obvious link?

    That of course being that all of the systems outlined above share the common denominator of being in sad need of genuine reform!

  24. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ David

    During the 70s , there was a vicious public assault on the teaching profession and that deterred many people from entering the service. This assault continued throughout the eighties and expanded to the police force and the nursing profession . The assault was engineered by the BLPDLP and their followers.
    Hence all of the above professions suffered and this overflowed into the wider society. We are paying the price today because we have lost almost two generations to political skullduggery.
    The very pillars of the society were undermined: law education and health services. Political interference remains rampant in these three prime areas.
    Note the current attempt to force nurses into a twenty four hour set up; note the problems with appointments and political interference regarding police and note how the students are disrespecting teachers.
    The apologists of the BLPDLP really have no moral authority to lecture others on what the solutions are. They have engineered the socio economic catastrophe we now confront. The ones who are braying about what’s wrong are the same ones who make up the collective political class.
    Hal’s position on a failed state along with Pacha’s prediction of total collapse will gain considerable support unless we banish
    the decadent duopoly.
    The Welfare of our state is threatened by the same miscreants who are braying almost daily on BU defending the decadent duopoly.

  25. David Avatar
    David

    @William

    Will post a blog to expand on the point John A is struggling to understand in a couple of hours.

  26. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ William

    Finally a person willing to see the bigger picture!!!!

    Thank you sir as I was just about to retreat with the fear that all is lost to the myopic thinkers.

    Let us now look at the total meltdown by one example only.

    If the system worked don’t you think if a problem child left school and got into trouble, hence landing him before the court system, that the court system if it was working should have helped to correct it? In other words either be enlisting him say for 6 months of service at the defence force or some similar program ?

    My point is therefore if the system worked his failures at school could have been addressed by a program directed by the court system and seen through by the defence force. Instead we use the 1880 approach and ” lost he way in jail.”

    Now can we agree complete reform is needed?

  27. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ John A

    Spot on. Look at what passes for discussion on BU – politics, usually party politics, law, usual advocacy and personal abuse. That is the expanse of the Bajan intellectual universe, or at least the BU one.

  28. John A Avatar
    John A

    David posting something in a few hours which will undoubtedly be written by someone who supports your argument does nothing to expand the discussion, it simply helps to add support to your view. Because I and others disagree with your view does not mean an article with the same view as yours will change ours. Personal opinion can not be dictated by you or anyone else, it can only be formed and held by the person.

    On the other hand free and open discussion might help if all were willing to state THEIR opinion even if they did not sing in the choir of others.

  29. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ Hal

    Then let them that wish to partake on that road continue smartly if that is their choice. Just don’t attempt to then direct the thinking of others that may not agree with you, by attempting a cease and desist type approach. I am willing to hear anyone’s view and discuss them. I am not however willing to sing in any particular choir because others want it to happen.

    As I said before my mother didn’t raise no sheep! Lol

  30. David Avatar
    David

    @John A

    Spot on!

    lol

  31. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    @ Hal Austin June 15, 2019 3:35 PM
    No good book shops. You are quite right. If I want a book shop. I have to go to Worthing to browse in the second hand book shop. There are no great selections. The alternative is the RSPCA second hand book shop. A sad state of affairs, Just like the National Library building which Owen Arthur did not repair. I have him in mind for that one. People of my generation owe a great deal to that Library. Even the same Arthur. I didn’t have the money to buy the Chemistry books and would borrow the books from the Library and constantly re-new them. Arthur is an ingrate where that Library is concerned

  32. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    @ ,de pedantic Dribbler June 15, 2019 2:40 PM

    “I have learned much this day from your remarks…just as I often do when I read the exposées from @John the scholar: ie, when you guys are primed you make some of the most wild and unverified statements imaginable” !

    I nearly died with laughter at the above.

  33. Wily Coyote Avatar
    Wily Coyote

    @Tron

    Wily hopes your last paragraph comments are more of your hidden sarcasm, if not your BLP RED LONG JOHN’S are on full display.

    https://shareitsfunny.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/lesbians-eat-what.jpg

  34. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    @ SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife June 15, 2019 3:09 PM

    A reasonable conclusion.

  35. John A Avatar
    John A

    Williams outline of where the breakdown started is correct and a statement supported by fact. He is right that the failure to respect law and authority is largely to be blamed on ALL governments passed and present. The disrespect has now expanded across ALL forms of correctional authorities, be it for the young or old. The governments of the past and present have failed to enact any true form of reform in ALL aspects of the system be it school, court or penal related, hence respect for the system is lost with many.

    To confirm this think how in the 70s the mere sight of a police van sent people scampering. Now we are at a stage where people don’t care and are even opening fire on a police vehicle if it enters their area.

    Do you now see why as a peope we can not discuss educational reform without discussion total reform of the court and penal system too?

  36. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ @ Hal, John A

    I have argued that public discourse has been hijacked by the parasites defending the BLPDLP. The country has become a wasteland in this regard. All discourse is now slanted in ways only advantageous or in defence of the decadent duopoly. Unfortunately, BU has not been escaped this persistent malady.
    In order to remain uncontaminated by this malady, those with truly independent minds must ignore the fanatics and see them as mere inferior entertainment.
    Independent thinkers will defend the Welfare of the State.

  37. Tron Avatar
    Tron

    Wily,

    I think you’re smart enough to see that this is my way of criticizing the lethargic islanders without doing the dirty work of the opposition, including GP and the DLP.

    We both know that the locals will no longer generate growth in the next thousand years and everything will soon fall apart. Then the sandbox game called “governing” is over and we can redesign the island to our liking.

    I am the accelerant of change.

  38. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    @ William Skinner June 15, 2019 3:52 PM

    I used to teach. What you have stated above is correct. I quit teaching because some of the pupils shouldn’t really be in schools. One could have gotten into some serious trouble.

  39. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ robert Lucas

    I would bet you money if you check the list at Dodds you would probably find many of them were guests there at some time after they left you too.

    Glad you got out with all organs in tact though!

  40. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ William Skinner

    I shall try your approach of ignoring the trivia in future then. It’s just sometimes it’s so overwhelmingly slanted with party politics one can’t help but try to inject some semblance of logic into it.

    If that fails I will use Hals approach and say ” last word at you I gone” lol

  41. David Avatar
    David

    @John A

    All of us bring biases to the discussion be it political, ignorance etc.

  42. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    @ Hal Austin June 15, 2019 2:55 PM

    Plato’s Allegory. I have checked it out. Got your drift .

    @ John A.June 15, 2019 4:47 PM
    Thanks. A lot of people do not know the true state of class rooms at some schools.

  43. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ Robert

    I am curious when roughly would you say you saw the decay start from?

  44. Piece the Legend Avatar
    Piece the Legend

    @ Artaxerxes

    My Aoologies for not attributing the very salient quote to you Artaxerxes

    I dont really read Iso TALIBAN too much because he is a liar.

    He grafts people’s materials and says it is his own so…..

  45. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @Robert Lucas,

    After the recent biography of @Sleepy’ Smith came out Ii thought it would be a good idea to read it while on holiday n Barbados. But rather than buy a copy in the UK I decided I would go to the university book shop and get a copy.
    When I went up there they did not have it. I asked the young lady for it and she said she had not heard about it. Then she told me a whopper: if they published a book they should make sure we got it in stock. Ii could not believe it.
    @Robert Lucas, O know abut small bookshops. I owned one.
    By the way, I am glad you have read Plato’s allegory. Think of it when you think of the quality of public discussions in Barbados.

  46. Piece the Legend Avatar
    Piece the Legend

    @ Pachamama

    You mentioned a blog I made at 7.55 but when I checked it was Commander Theophillus in that time slot not me

  47. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ Hal

    I try to adopt the outlook of ” the escaped prisoner” but find that attempts to return to the cave and enlighten my 2 remaining colleagues sometimes is futile, hence I try my best to stay free outside the cave in search of other escaped prisoners who share my thinking.

    As I said earlier sometimes the wall is just too overwhelming for some to see past.

    Sorry didn’t mean to basterdise the thinking of Plato in such a simplistic form but yes it definitely applies to this scenario !

  48. de pedantic Dribbler Avatar
    de pedantic Dribbler

    @Doc Lucas, re your laughter …I realized afterwards that to be fair to @Simple she was playing de fool and sucked me in with her remarks re smoking-guns and the male rite of passage… in the parlance of the Mighty Sparrow she was engaging in some picong and I missed that and actually took her seriously !

    Now re this stuff you, @John A and Hall are debating…I am a bit confounded as it appears you are arguing with David at cross purposes.

    For example, how can there be a dispute that the brunt of the issues starts with how we are educated… and naturally it mestazies from there…are you not saying the same thing in different ways ! A few other remarks appear as conundrums to me…

    1…if The Blogmaster posts an essay “which will undoubtedly be written by someone who supports [his] argument” is THAT not the starting point for “…free and open discussion” as surely “…all [will willingly] state THEIR opinion even if they did not sing in the choir of others.”

    So my conundrum is how can bloggerJohn A conclude it would do “…nothing to expand the discussion, [but] it simply helps to add support to your view.”

    Isn’t almost every blog here started with a slanted opinion from which differing views often then take precedence!

    2…Like you, when I first returned to Bim after an extended stay away I too was taken aback that the public library downtown had seemingly stood still re progress of offering materials to Bajans…appalled actually. But that was before the wonders of the interent and tablets and downloading/buying books electronically.

    Thus to me – though valid to state that “…[t]he insularity of a small island [frustrates]…. no good bookshops; no good television, radio or newspapers; learning by osmosis”, it is also merely Hal’s idiosyncratic fall back critique re Bim….every wified or ‘Flowed’ Bajan has access to ANY book s/he wants or any media source and even those with dilapadated homes have a cable box offering exposure to Nat Geo, BBC and other critically acclaimed educational TV.

    The critique is a handy trope which speaks to nothing even as it highlights how biased and snarky commentary can shift our gaze from the real issue…which in this case would be what is the govt continuing to do to ensure all students can safely access the vast worldwide library of data and to further ensure that Bajans can not be deprived of that as a result of some external threat.

    That would be the type of question …not Hal’s contrivance!

    Hal noted some time ago a the book titled ‘The Death of Expertise’… and i think we run the risk often of debating to death “established knowledge” as if the world started just as we opened our mouths!

    So @John A, you make it sound facile that from the bench all magistrates and judges could enact social policy regarding sentencing offenders before them when you offer “[i]f the system worked his failures at school could have been addressed by a program directed by the court system and seen through by the defence force. Instead we use the 1880 approach and ” lost he way in jail.”

    I hear you and accept that need for a different model but the SYSTEM is the PEOPLE… we demand change of our politicians and elect those to meet our demands who in turn pass legislation to effect those demands…THAT’s what directs the justice system… so yes a new model in needed and who has the power to frame it… WE do!

    Same as always!

  49. de pedantic Dribbler Avatar
    de pedantic Dribbler

    …well Actually, MOST books not ANY… as many are not electronicall availzble stilll.

    However surely the subject matter from another electronic source would be available.

  50. John A Avatar
    John A

    @de pedantic Dribbler

    Call me the eternal optimist but my concern is that a failed education should not sentence a child to a life of failure, which may or may not end up in incarceration.

    For example let’s say a young man did poorly at school and was a failure in the educational system thus ending up in front a judge. Don’t you think it would be nice if the judge had the option of sending him to 6 months or 12 months of service in a program at the defence force?

    Now as for the school system can we agree that failing at school should not Destin a child to be a failure in life? Some of the richest men in the world never finished school. Gates, Dell and too many more to mention here. Actually it is also a proven fact that most true entrepreneurs don’t do well in a structured system that may work for the majority. How many of those we have sentenced to failure here are just persons who don’t do well boxed into a system designed for mass education?

    If you look at where Butch Stewart started, many days when he should of been at school he was as he put it ” looking for a dollar”.

    It is my view therefore that even if the educational system is flawed the other systems should have fail safe options in it for these guys, hence getting them back on track. My point is that we instead have a chain reaction of failed systems with no fail safe options, hence ending in incarceration for many.

    Don’t get me wrong I am not saying jail is not the best place for some. What I am however asking is it the best place for all?

The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.

Trending

Discover more from Barbados Underground

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading