I happened to be on the road yesterday during Love 97's Issues of The Day radio programme and they were discussing crime and what we should do about it.
There were numerous callers suggesting that the death penalty was the answer to the crime. I beg to differ.
I would suggest that we are all responsible for the crime.
Before you get angry, hear me out.
Quite a while ago we caught an employee stealing red handed and proceeded to press charges. Before we could get to court we received calls from the parents, the church reverend and their parliamentary representative to drop the charges.
Of course we disagreed and proceeded to court.
When we arrived at the court the attorney for the employee asked if we were sure we wanted to proceed for such a small amount of money.
The fact is we proceeded on the basis that a theft occurred. The amount of money was irrelevant!
If the response of parents, preachers and politicians is that we should not press charges against the criminals it makes no difference how much money and other resources are provided the Courts and the Police, crime will not cease...neither petty theft or murder.
As Bahamians we need to do some serious soul searching when one of our family members are charged with wrong doing.
To put it colloquially...we must stop cloaking the criminals among us.
