{"id":7394,"date":"2013-03-25T05:59:27","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T09:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=7394"},"modified":"2013-03-26T05:26:16","modified_gmt":"2013-03-26T09:26:16","slug":"ryan-report-on-laventille-crime-dagger-aimed-at-pos-belly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=7394","title":{"rendered":"Ryan report on Laventille crime: Dagger aimed at POS’ belly"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Richard Lord – March 23, 2013
\nwww.guardian.co.tt\/news\/2013-03-23\/ryan-report-laventille-crime-dagger-aimed-pos-belly<\/a><\/small><\/i><\/p>\n

Selwyn Ryan<\/a>Government is being warned to do \u201cwhatever is necessary\u201d to silence the guns in the hands of the criminal element in Laventille. If those carrying the guns are allowed to run rampant, they could eventually train those guns on the capital city itself.
\n
\nThis was one of the recommendations of the Cabinet-appointed Youth At Risk Committee, which was chaired by Dr Selwyn Ryan, professor emeritus of political science at the University of the West Indies\u2019 St Augustine campus. <\/p>\n

Other members of the committee were lecturer in international relations, Department of Behavioural Sciences Dr Indira Rampersad; professor of gender and cultural Studies Patricia Mohammed; former dean of the arts and general studies at UWI Dr Marjorie Thorpe; and Independent Senator Dr Lennox Bernard.<\/p>\n

The report has also recommended the establishment of a national service scheme \u201cin the shortest possible time.\u201d It said the service should consist of \u201ccompulsory community-based project\/service learning for secondary school students (for a minimum of 40 contact hours).\u201d<\/p>\n

The 436-page report, titled: No Time to Quit: Engaging Youth At Risk, was laid in the House of Representatives by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday. She said the report recommended the use of sport to deal with the problem of crime. <\/p>\n

Persad-Bissessar said her Government fully endorsed recommendations for an investment in sport as a deterrent to juvenile crime, and this was proven by the immense success of the Hoop for Life community basketball tournament for teams in depressed communities across the country.<\/p>\n

Dealing with crime, the report said: \u201cGreater Laventille has made a distinctive contribution to the national culture and must be rehabilitated and helped to rise again.\u201d <\/p>\n

The report also listed another \u201ccompelling\u201d reason to resuscitate East Port-of-Spain, which the Ryan Committee said it has to do with the \u201cstrategic location\u201d of the community. <\/p>\n

\u201cLaventille, one is warned, is like the \u2018dagger\u2019 pointed at the \u2018soft underbelly\u2019 of the capital city, and it would be irresponsible and negligent for those responsible for strategic planning to ignore the possibility that Laventille could in time be the weak link in the urban chain,\u201d the committee wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thus (therefore) has to do whatever is necessary to \u2018silence the guns\u2019 of Dorata Street, Laventille, Beverly Hills and John John amongst others,\u201d the report recommended.<\/p>\n

The report indicated that the young African males in urban hot spots such as Laventille were more at risk of being directly caught in the criminal world of drugs, guns and deadly violent crime if something was not done immediately to stem the problem.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, according to the document: \u201cThe problem is that Laventille and its diaspora is now more a matter of class than one of race.\u201d<\/p>\n

It said the National Security Minister must also go after the \u201cbig ones\u201d who imported guns and illicit drugs into Laventille.<\/p>\n

And the report also recommended changes to the Teaching Service Commission, saying it should be restructured and renamed the Educational Service Commission. <\/p>\n

The report said this ESC should be responsible for recruiting, selecting and reviewing personnel at higher levels of the education service\u2014principals and vice principals\u2014and should be relieved of interviewing, which could be done by the Education Ministry. <\/p>\n

On education:<\/b><\/p>\n

The report also recommended new attention should be given to raising the quality of the teaching profession, which must become a national policy.<\/p>\n

\u2022 All teachers should be certified and licensed by a regulatory body of teachers and other educational specialists called the National Council for Professional Standards in Teaching (NCPST).<\/p>\n

\u2022 The NCPST licence should be awarded for two periods of five years each with an initial application after a year of internship.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Teachers should be able to renew their licences for a second five-year period, after which they would become tenured.<\/p>\n

Other recommendations:<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2022 The Youth Training Centre in Arouca \u201cshould not be staffed by prison officers but individuals specially trained in youth development and sensitive to the objectives of the YTC.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 A card calling system should be instituted at correctional institutions to reduce the illegal use of mobile phones.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Drug treatment courts should be established in the shortest possible time.<\/p>\n

For parents:<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2022 Industrial law should allow parents to visit the child\u2019s school to consult with the teacher for one or two hours a month.<\/p>\n

\u2022 National Parent\/Teacher Association should re-examine its role in education of children and give credence to its efficacy and advocacy based on strong pedagogical principles.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.guardian.co.tt\/news\/2013-03-23\/ryan-report-laventille-crime-dagger-aimed-pos-belly<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Richard Lord – March 23, 2013 www.guardian.co.tt\/news\/2013-03-23\/ryan-report-laventille-crime-dagger-aimed-pos-belly Government is being warned to do \u201cwhatever is necessary\u201d to silence the guns in the hands of the criminal element in Laventille. If those carrying the guns are allowed to run rampant, they could eventually train those guns on the capital city itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1,178,396,7],"tags":[104,44,1015,848,375,49],"class_list":["post-7394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-general-tt","category-media","category-peoples-partnership","category-politics","tag-african","tag-crime-in-tt","tag-politics","tag-ryan-crime-report","tag-selwyn-ryan","tag-tt-govt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7394"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7404,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7394\/revisions\/7404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}