Attorney General Speaks On Holistic Approach To Crime Fighting

Contact: John Emmanuel  

Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - St. Lucia’s Attorney General and Minister with responsibility for the Public Service has sounded a call for of the nation’s youth, to get more involved and participate more meaningfully in the overall process of nation building.

Senator Petrus Compton, addressing a special joint sitting of the House of Assembly and Senate last week, called upon the island’s leading youth organization - National Youth Council (NYC) to do more in mobilizing marginalized youngsters to join the fight against crime and violence. The NYC he admitted had done much by way of engaging the average St. Lucian youngster, but not enough he says was being done to involve the growing number of dysfunctional teenagers in the society. 

“This is a body that I support tremendously, but I have to say that the NYC has not shown sufficient leadership in dealing with the alienated and marginalized youth in the ghettos -  those who hangout on the blocks, who loiter at the street corners and terrorise the school children when they pass, these are the ones who are lost. Those who come here to the Parliament building annually to conduct the Youth Parliament, they are already saved, at least most of them. The NYC continues to preach to the converted, but we need to get the youths in the ghettos - those who spend all day smoking marijuana, those who do not want to look for work and spend all day terrorising the young girls and boys, these are the ones we need to target,” said Senator Compton.

Senator Compton also went on to call for greater commitment and collaboration on the part of political parties, religious organizations and other interest groups in society, in dealing with and managing the issue of crime and violence. Government he noted was predicating a three-prong strategy to tackle crime head on.

According to him, “We are going to deal with unity as a people against crime. This is fundamental. We are going to reform the police to create a new, effective, well motivated, organized and managed police force as a central part of that strategy and we are also going to use complementary measures including the formation of the National Crime Commission (NCC) to deal with that.”

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