The head of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) has urged parents to pay attention to what their children are doing in school.
“We have had a lot of complaints coming out of the JP Eustace school — children fighting and doing things that the teachers are not satisfied with and even us as police officers we are not satisfied with.” Superintendent of Police Clauston Francis told the police town hall meeting in Edinboro on March 21.
The public forum, part of a series across the country, took place after a walk through that community and Ottley Hall, which have seen several shooting deaths and injuries over the last few months.
Francis said that as an “old policeman”, he has realised that criminality begins “from a very young age 10, 11, 12 and as they get older, they get more advanced in criminal activity.
“So, you have to bend the tree while it is young. Take my advice, speak to their teachers, attend PTA meetings, know what your children are doing in school,” Francis said, adding, “rebuke them when they do something wrong.
“Do not spoil your children because you will regret it in the end. Be serious with your kids. Invest in them, be role models for them and encourage them also to be role models for others,” the senior detective urged.
“This is very important because the children are the future. So, if they are involved in crime now that they are small, when they get old, it will not change.”
Francis said that children practice what they see.
“So, if you do good in their presence, they will do good too. But if you don’t, they will do things that you will regret, they will regret and you will have to come into the hands of the police at CID.”
Meanwhile, two pastors who spoke during the open forum also urged the police to pay attention to the students at the secondary school, which is located in Bottom Edinboro, and the music played in vans.
“I think that the police, that we as a people need to understand that the music, the lyrics that are being used and played around us is affecting our children,” Pastor Douglas Neverson said.
“I don’t know how else to say it. I don’t think we fully understand the impact of some of the music on the minds of our kids. And I think it’s real.”
Neverson said that maybe a little more care needs to be taken “about the vans that come through Bottom Edinboro sometimes and the music they play.
“Guys, for what it’s worth, I’m handing that to you. I think that there’s been an easing down on that. But I want to suggest that you pay special attention to that,” he told the police officers at the meeting.
Meanwhile, Winston Alleyne, who is also a preacher, said that he does not think that the Noise Act is being enforced “because these vans still keep in too much noise, unnecessary noise.
“The music they’re playing, you can’t even understand the music. And many times, I refuse to catch a van here because of the noise that they’re keeping.”
Alleyne expressed the view that no other musical device should be added to minivans apart from what they are fitted with by the manufacturers.
“And that could be solving all the problems where the noise is concerned,” he said.
Just today I spoke with two teenaged boys who mentioned that much fighting is taking place in their Form and other Forms in the Secondary School. Children must be taught to settle disputes in a peaceful way. Proverbs 17:14 tells us to leave before contention or quarreling starts. Children must do that and prevent fights from starting. Of course, parents and guardians must set a good example for the children in setting disputes in a calm manner.
Raising children sired by different pass-by or bite-and-run sperm donors is a good way to produce psychologically troubled offspring who will express their emotional immaturity or outright mental damage by engaging in violent or illegal behaviour.
Examples are great teachers , no role models for the young generation to emulate.
Me ah bad jan , so me gine “fight ‘ wid de bank. me go deal wid dem and day family. only one phone call and man drp dead. diry dog. na call up me mother name in his dirty mouth. perfect middle finger. 2. ghost injured CJ in he own place , dem still wid big wok. man go in cemetry , get bitchen wok. can go on and on and on. Preachers, in my opinion some of these problems lie with what’s happening around us. Never heard any of you speak out on any of these injustices , to keep silent is to give consent.