Premier Brown: "We've Had Enough"
Last night, Premier Brown convened a special cabinet session to create new policies that will curb anti-social behaviour among young people that is threatening Bermuda's way of life.
He announced a number of proactive policies that will both crack down on criminals and prevent crime in the first place. Premier Brown:
First and foremost, we will immediately increase Police presence on the street and exert maximum pressure on the trade of drugs and weapons with a sustained crackdown by the Bermuda Police Service.
More police focused on getting drugs and weapons off the street is the first part of a comprehensive new plan to fight crime. The Premier continues:
We will convene a legal panel within the next ten days to review our laws to ensure they’re able to deal adequately with the current climate of criminal behavior we are seeing in our country. If the nature of our crimes has changed, then the laws will need to follow suit.
The legal panel will help us determine how to best amend our criminal code such that offenders are punished. The Premier:
We will convene “Clergy Against Crime” – a panel of clergymen and women who will discuss innovative ways to stem the tide of anti-social behavior.
Involving churches is critical to the success of anti-social programmes. They play an important role in the lives of a vast majority of Bermudians and church leaders must be involved in the conversation. Premier Brown:
We will look into the feasibility of an amnesty on weapons – particularly guns. First we’ll need to examine the potential impact this could have on live criminal investigations. We don’t want to provide amnesty to the perpetrators of past crimes, but we do want to take weapons off the street that may be used in future crimes. It will be a delicate balance, but we will work to meet it.
Firearm amnesty programmes have proven effective in terms of getting guns off the streets and we should explore whether it is a feasible solution.
The schools also play an important role in combating anti-social behaviour. Premier:
Meantime, we also have our attention focused on anti-social behavior in the public school system.
In the short term, for the upcoming school year, we will insist upon meaningful intervention on the part of teachers and administrators when they detect a troubled student. Additionally, we will provide our schools with psychological and psychiatric care when necessary to treat where trouble is found. Plus you can expect us to revitalize a focus on like skills programming in the schools.
We will also instruct school administrators to hold their students to the strictest of standards when it comes to uniform and appearance. And when administrators are heavy handed in this regard they will have the full support of the Government because we believe enforcement of these rules reduce anti-social behaviour and heighten respect for law and order.
The PLP government has made education reform a priority and empowering our schools to identify troubled students and enforce the rules is a key component to the success of our anti-crime programme.
There's more. Premier Brown:
We believe the time has come to explore the formation of a Bermuda SWAT team. Those who chose gunfire to settle their disputes should be on alert. Our strongest stand yet against your senseless violence could be on the horizon.
The SWAT team could be a powerful new tool that will help to break up the gangs and drug rings.
The Premier continues:
We will conduct an external review on the Department of Child and Family Services and its programs. We believe the Department has done a great job at identifying areas of concern, but perhaps are not properly equipped to treat those areas of concern. An external review will help us better understand what is required.
Making this department more efficient will help us prevent crime and it's an important step. There's more.
We will also look at the legality of making custodial parents responsible for the illegal activity of their children. Simultaneously we will look to add life skills training as a requirement to receive financial assistance from the Government. That life skills training will include instruction on effective parenting.
This action will hold absent parents accountable and help improve parenting skills. The Premier concludes:
Finally, I want to end with a strategy we will tackle in the mid-term. As you know the MIRRORS program, introduced by this Government, has been an unparalleled success in stemming the tide of anti-social behavior. More than 60 of our young people have been transformed. We need to intensify this effort.
The Government will look toward turning one of our country’s beautiful remote islands into a designated site for a year-round MIRRORS program. Our vision is a full-time, country-wide dedicated effort to social transformation. We will risk the temptation of making the program so large that its impact is diluted, but we are committed to making the power of MIRRORS available to more of our young citizens.
MIRRORS is an incredibly successful programme that needs to be expanded to reach more young people.
This multifaceted approach is a comprehensive one that includes both short term and long term commitments to reducing anti-social behaviour. It is truly an 'everything' approach that focuses on prevention, deterrence and policing.
There's not one magic cure to the problems our young people face. And, that's why it's going to take this kind of multi-tiered approach implemented over time that will help us take back Bermuda's streets.
