Opposition Leader Michael Pintard speaks in the House of Assembly. Photo: Dante Carrer
By JADE RUSSELL
Tribune Staff Reporter
jrussell@tribunemedia.net
CHARGING parents for harbouring children who are gang members will cause suffering for many good parents, Free National Movement leader Michael Pintard warned yesterday, adding that most parents do not know the double life their children may lead.
His comment came before he and other parliamentarians supported the passage of the Anti-Gang Bill 2024.
In response to his concern, National Security Minister Wayne Munroe said parents must be held accountable when they see alarming behaviour from their children and say nothing to the police. He said some parents see their sons bringing guns home, getting new cars without a job, or having unusual tattoos and haircuts, but don’t tell authorities.
The Anti-Gang Bill says anyone harbouring a gang member could be jailed for up to 20 years. If the gang member or gang leader is a child, their parent would be convicted for harbouring them.
Mr Pintard said while many parents can say their child is “no-manners” or they disapprove of their friends, they “cannot tell you if their child is involved with a gang”.
Mr Pintard said it is a “disservice” for parents to be targeted and that an unintended consequence will be many innocent, hardworking parents getting charged when they have set a positive example for their children.
He said when he was a student, he had a disobedient phase despite his mother displaying the perfect example of a parent and a citizen.
“Would it have been fair to incarcerate my mother?” he asked, “because of things I’m doing when she is busy working two jobs to feed her family? This is not to excuse those parents who are guilty of a dereliction of duty.”
Mr Munroe responded that the Penal Code defines harbouring as someone who knows or has reason to believe that a person has committed or has been convicted of a crime and helps that person avoid arrest.
“If your child is in a gang, look at his head,” Mr Munroe said. “If he has a very weird haircut and you see a bunch of young fellas with the same weird haircut, he might be in a gang. Talk to the Urban Renewal officers.
“If you see him turning up with stuff he has no way of legitimately having, talk to the police. If you see something, say something because if you don’t say something, you yourself may be guilty of an offence. It is as simple as that. The Bahamian public is demanding that parents retake some responsibility for the actions of their children.”
Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis, during his contribution to the gang bill, also evoked images of non-gang members being held accountable under the legislation.
He said: “I know there are those who, when they see the mother or grandmother or girlfriend in handcuffs, may feel a sense of sympathy for their situation, knowing they were not in the gangs themselves, but it is an unfortunate situation. We are at the point where we cannot allow others to continue to support their loved ones in the commission of crimes without being held accountable.”
Mr Pintard called for empirical studies to determine what percentage of violent crimes are gang-related.
Comments
stillwaters 1 week, 6 days ago
Most teenagers have a hidden personality. They display one to parents and the other to friends. Teachers are the only people who see both personalities. The personality shown to friends is usually who that child really is. When people talk about their child in bad company, I can only smile..........
birdiestrachan 1 week, 6 days ago
If the child is a minor the parents are responsible for how they go and come quote train up a child in the right way and they will not depart pay attention so that the children will not make you ashamed or mourn their passing I believe some parents try but some of them are crooks themselves like the third and fourth generation
John 1 week, 5 days ago
This is a dirty, nasty stinking, rehash of the ‘Ennie, Meany, Miney Moe. Catch a nigg@r. by his toe ‘ law that Hillary Clinton had planned to pass if Donald Trump had not beat her back under her rock of submission and submersion. The Clintons had already had their friends construct hundreds of privately operated jail facilities around the US and had she won, she planned to round up thousands of young, BLACK and Brown men and send them to these facilities on ‘suspicion of being gang bangers. She described these young me as being ‘damaged beyond repair’ and ‘ predators’ and planned to hold these persons in jail indefinitely if not for life. They had searched thousands of Facebook profiles to identify persons they proposed to lock up. Donald Trump had also planned to send the National Guard into hot spot areas like Chicago and Philadelphia and ‘now down ‘ with tanks persons suspected of gang activities.
‘ . And in Bahamian terms, this Davis bill is nothing more than a sis’sy bill where this punked out government plans to make the innocent pay for the guilty. In the bill a ‘defined as three or more gang’ three or more persons. So in reality, police can pull up on a vehicle with three individuals going to or coming from work and ‘suspect’ them of being in a gang and lock them up without evidence or without a warrant. Same for four individuals playing Domonioes at a residence. And since this punk legislation seeks to lock up parents of children found to be in gangs, it should also lock up teachers and hold schools responsible for the same children activities since they are in their custody some six to eight hours. Likewise for businesses that employ persons who are found to be in a gang. Just lock the whole damn country down like Minnis did. Even if three or more persons gathered at the public pump to get water or at the coconut boy’s stand.. lock down and lock up!
sheeprunner12 1 week, 5 days ago
I agree with Pintard ........ Where is the empirical evidence (research) that says that 20% or 60% of the serious crimes in Nassau & Freeport are committed by gang members?
Politicians may be using "gangs" as a cover for their own goon squads that they have created over the decades to keep political power in certain urban areas that are "crime infested".
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