There can be no development unless our society is freed from the grip of crime and violence. We must all join in the fight to defeat the cancer that is threatening to consume all of us. – Opposition Democratic Labour Party (DLP), 1999 election manifesto.
THERE are few among us who were politically aware in 1999 that would forget the intense focus by the DLP on the crime and violence issue in the lead-up to the general election.
That election will be memorable for more than the historic, unprecedented landslide 26-2 victory by the Barbados Labour Party.
The saturation campaign by DLP president and political leader David Thompson on crime and violence lit up the platforms nightly and included multimedia advertising that was hard to miss, complete with dramatic TV voiceovers.
Unfortunately, in the heat of the battle for state power, it appeared that those most affected by the phenomenon – the people – were forgotten, or at worst, ignored.
Perhaps to its everlasting shame, the BLP used every opportunity to ridicule the DLP’s thematic crime and violence campaign to highlight the lived reality of communities whose residents cowered in their homes under the onslaught of criminals.
But it turned out that, maybe with the DLP’s attempt at self-destruction only four years earlier still fresh in their minds, voters sided with the ruling BLP and returned only two Opposition MPs in the traditional strongholds of St John – held by the DLP since 1958 – and St Lucy.
The misery of those two MPs, Thompson and Denis Kellman, continued into the ensuing parliamentary session with their opponents in and out of Parliament derisively referring to them as “Crime” and “Violence”!
An unapologetic Thompson, however, declined to concede that he might have overplayed the issue of crime.
“No,” he responded to an interviewer. “The opinion polls plus feedback from the candidates and constituents all pointed to people’s safety and security as prime concerns.
“We didn’t manufacture that. You can either turn a blind eye to it or you can say there was too much emphasis on it.”
Victorious Prime Minister Owen Arthur reasoned the electorate had repudiated the unrelenting DLP focus on crime.
“I don’t believe that anybody in Barbados believes that crime and violence is a political cause,” Arthur declared.
It, however, did little to lessen the concerns of Barbadians about their susceptibility to violent crime that has continued to this day, even in the face of official statistics trumpeting that “overall” crime is down.
Yet, the perception is that the level of criminal activity, whether residential burglary or violent crime, up to and including murder, is on the rise – be it the relatively new phenomenon of drive-by shootings or public execution of alleged drug dealers.
It is a situation transcending partisan politics and has bedevilled successive administrations.
So much so that this assertion by the DLP’s 1999 manifesto is as true today as it was then: “The unfortunate reality is that today our streets are unsafe, our children are more exposed to violence and drug abuse, and ordinary citizens are dying in cold-blooded executions. Gunmen and cutlass-wielding robbers attack even in broad daylight.”
The parallels appear not to have escaped the eagle eye of Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, who was Thompson’s #2 and shadowed the Ministry of the Attorney General.
In the midst of a recent spate of shootings and violent crime, Stuart declared himself upset about the level of violence and called on us all to come together and recognise that everyone was “under threat if this approach to life takes hold in Barbados”.
“It does nothing for the reputation of Barbados to have human life devalued in the way in which I see it being devalued in cold blood by certain elements, admittedly a small element in the society. But that small element can do Barbados’ reputation untold damage . . . I am not at all happy with these developments.”
The reality is that the policies and programmes by these governments have all failed to stem the tide, and a recent study by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) on “Crime and Violence in Barbados” fingered the “glaringly limited” research into crime and violence – its causes, incidence and effects.
“The ability to produce rigorous empirical research as well as to enact evidence-based policies and interventions aimed at reducing crime is severely hampered by a culture of inadequate data collection that appears to pervade the range of government and non-governmental organisations, with few exceptions,” it concluded.
More boots, yes; but support the policies with evidence.
Albert Brandford is an independent political correspondent. Email: albertbrandford@nationnews.com.
