by TRACY MOORE

TOO MANY young people are ending up in Juvenile Court because of gambling.

Magistrate Barbara Cooke-Alleyne made the assertion yesterday at the launch of In The Winner's Circle: Making The Right Choice an all-day programme by the Office of the Attorney-General, Magistrate Cooke-Alleyne, and the Royal Barbados Police Force.

The programme is designed to help students leaving primary school and heading into secondary school fight the pressures of illicit sex, illegal drugs and other criminal activities.

"I find that children spend their lunch hour engaging in playing dice, cock-fighting [and] dog-fighting and then they end up coming before me," Cooke-Alleyne, a former juvenile court magistrate, asserted.

She was speaking to the students of three primary schools – St Giles Primary, Wilkie Cumberbatch Primary and Carrington's Primary – who were invited to the pilot programme at District "A" Police Station, Station Hill, St Michael.

"Once they start gambling it gets into their system and they get addicted; then they start to steal to get money to play dice and when they are not winning they get angry and they are fighting," the magistrate claimed.

"So I might see them on more than one charge – charges of gambling, stealing, violence such as fighting and so on. It disturbs me to see so many young people coming before me destroying their lives at an early age and I am trying to find out how I can save them and help them save themselves," she said.

She noted that "bright" children also came before the court because "they make certain choices, some wrong choices, following the wrong crowd. They
are bright, but they aren't smart".

"I recognised that it was important we start from an early age to educate young people about illegal drugs, illicit sex, theft and other crimes that they may encounter while they are at both primary and secondary schools," said director of the National Task Force on Crime Prevention Cheryl Willoughby, a former police officer who worked 14 years with young people.

"I would have often sat with parents who recognised that they had wonderful little children when they were going to primary school and all of a sudden these wonderful little children turned into monsters as soon as they hit secondary school.