Police Youth Programmes Effective

(ZIZ News) — Commissioner of Police, Dr. C. G. Walwyn is satisfied that police and community based initiatives to steer youth away from deviant lifestyles are bearing fruit.

Speaking at Conversations For Progress in Sandy Point on Wednesday, Dr. Walywn said young males in particular are willingly participating in police youth guidance programmes. He also noted that violence in schools over the last 36 months has dropped to almost zero.

“We just started another programme called “Law Enforcement Explorers”. We started this on Saturday and I was surprised that 20 young men, one was aged 11 the rest were 13 through 16. And they showed up for this programme. This is another way for us to reach our young men. The crime in our schools of the last three years has gone down to almost zero. As a matter of fact we have researchers from CARICOM who are coming to St. Kitts over the next week or two and they’ll be speaking with the police and the children because they want to see how we have achieved what we have achieved,” he said.

Dr. Walywn said that continued cooperation between the community and the police force is critical to keeping the Federation’s youth on the right path.

“We wanna make sure that we approach our children from this point of view. Trying to bridge the gap between them and us. Trying to give them an alternative to gangs, guns, drugs and violence,” he said.