Thursday, March 28, 2024

ON REFLECTION: Toxic criminal waste

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The police force is doing a tremendous job in trying to crack down on the spate of attacks, murders and break-ins in recent times, but is faced with controllable issues which seem presently beyond its control.
In a number of the most heinous crimes committed in the last decade in Barbados, the accused and convicted have included criminal deportees from North America, sent here with all their criminal knowledge, mindset and antisocial behaviours and simply let loose to “run tings” on the streets of this country.
Successive administrations have spoken about this scourge but can do very little when the big countries decide that a criminal, who has broken the law in New York or London, or has had a hand in terrorizing those cities, happened to have been born in Barbados and is therefore not their problem.
Even if the thug left here when he was less than two years old, he suddenly becomes a problem for Barbados, St Lucia, Trinidad or some other Caribbean state that did not make him into a criminal.
That hardened criminal knows precious little about these countries and could care less.
As far as he is concerned, deporting him from the big city he has called home – the only home he really knows – is a form of punishment; and when he comes to these shores he isn’t coming to turn over a new leaf but is more than likely plannimg to continue practising his criminal skills: the skills he learned and honed on the streets of New York, Los Angeles or some inner-city ghetto.
My suggestion is for governments in Barbados and the region to lobby vociferously against this continual dumping of toxic criminal waste.
The same way we are so intent on keeping out neighbouring non-nationals, whether they be criminals or merely seeking a better life, we have to make our voices heard against the scourge of criminal deportees, and we have to be heard in Washington and the halls of Westminster Abbey.
We do not want these criminals to come here and turn our streets into miniature versions of the Bronx.
The countries these thugs are coming from are the places which equipped them with criminal skills, made them into cold-blooded gangsters and spawned the evil intent, whose intensity is still somewhat foreign to us in this fair land.
“Ever so welcome, wait for a call,” we need to reiterate to these strangers and their respective governments.
And the hypcrisy of it all is saddening. Why would the United States, especially, herd these criminal deportees back to these small island states today, and tomorrow supply our governments with funding, personnel, state-of-the-art equipment and military training to fight some of the same criminals?
So many drug interdiction seminars are held across the Caribbean; boats and weapons provided; American Embassy officials discuss all manner of crime counter-activity with the local Coast Guard and Defence Force; local and regional police officers are sent abroad yearly to study – funded by the United States, Canada and others – all in the effort to combat crime.
This comes after those countries foist upon us some of the same criminals causing the drug problems, recruiting the gangs, and killing innocent citizens in their homes.
Are the governments of the region still accepting whatever garbage the big countries throw at us? Our mentality still seems to be: sift through the junk and you just might find something of worth. This is unacceptable!
And what about our Police Force and Immigration? They need to implement a better monitoring system instead of simply allowing these deportees to disembark at Grantley Adams International and freely roam our highways and byways.
And, where are the guns coming from? The deportees, who arrive with little more than the clothes on their backs, don’t bring in guns. And guns aren’t cheap; neither are they manufactured in Barbados.
So who are the people living on these shores and either importing or making available a substantial number of Glocks, AK47s and assault rifles?
We are fighting a losing battle if guns and thugs continue to flow in unabated, and we are importing toxic criminal waste that is beginning to seep into every single pore of Barbados’ anatomy.
I hope, as the old folks say, we’re not “spinning top in mud”.

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