• by IPS Correspondents (port of spain)
• Friday, December 30, 1994
• Inter Press Service

PORT OF SPAIN, Dic 30 (IPS) - Crime did not take a holiday this Christmas; it took the lives of two teenagers.

Teenager Andrew Nyack was killed over the Christmas weekend after a fight with a group of young men at a popular night club here in the city and 16 year old Ezra Hinds was shot to death by one of the members of his gang.

The two deaths were the latest in a number of violent crimes involving persons under the age of 25. This year alone there were 141 murders, something of a record here, and according to opposition leader Basdeo Panday media reports show that a large number of the victims and perpetrators are young persons.

Panday attributes this spate of violent crimes among the young to high unemployment among that grouping.

"Quite simply one-third of our young population under the age of 25 are being driven inexorably into the abyss of a netherworld where they become unwilling victims of the social diseases with which this nation is afflicted," Panday said.

Just last week minibus (public transportation) drivers protested the increase in crime after a conductor was shot and killed by a young passenger who refused to pay the two TT dollar (35 U.S.cents) fare.

Many here are blaming the increase in crime on the breakdown of the family structures.

"Violence is nurtured in the family. Parents who themselves have a history of violence are more likely to raise violent children. Violent behaviour is learned and the education occurs at home," says clinical psychologist Dr Jillian Ballantyne.

Ballantyne also blames the mass media for feeding young people a steady diet of violence.

"They become hooked on seeing these depictions of violence and develop an appetite for violent images."

Dennis Francis, manager of the St. Michael's School, an institution for delinquent boys, blames poor parental control for violence among young people.

He pointed out that many of the boys at his facility had parents who were not much older than they are and who did not know much about childrearing.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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