International Crime Summit To Tackle Social Ills

Under the theme, "Enforcing the Fight Against Crime, Violence and Social Ills through Global Collaboration," the summit will address the best remedy for addressing criminal challenges through a series of meetings, seminars and conferences.

"The summit, the first of its kind to be held in The Bahamas, will bring together a wide spectrum of law enforcement officials, academics and pertinent stakeholders, locally and from abroad, to share opinions on internationally accepted best practices and to plan and develop effective crime fighting strategies and initiatives," said Deputy Prime Minister Cynthia Pratt yesterday at a press conference to announce the summit.

"The summit will examine and review the gamut of crime, from domestic violence, child abuse, gang violence, terrorism, white collar crime, to violent crime and social ills that give rise to crime."

Minister Pratt encouraged persons to register and take part in the conference, set for April 24 to 28 at the Wyndham Nassau Resort and Crystal Palace.

"It is important as a nation to take proactive steps to address the problem of crime, the solution of which requires partnership at all levels of our society and a firm resolve of the Bahamian people to take ownership of the problem and work together towards bringing about effective change," Minister Pratt said.

The summit is being launched in partnership with Social Justice in the United States of America, a non-profit educational, social science, criminal justice and legal professional organisation.

Its goals are to provide expertise on crime prevention programmes and agencies; knowledge to criminal justice agencies and community groups that assist high-risk youth and conference and training seminars on current issues that affect the quality of life in the community.

Minister Pratt acknowledged that crime is one of the country’s biggest problems and noted that with major investments coming on stream, crime must be controlled in order to continue to attract investors to the country.

"Crime is certainly our concern and it is a challenge to us as a people. Crime is all of our business, it is not only the government’s and it’s a concern for all of us," Minister Pratt said.

As the Minister of National Security, Mrs. Pratt said she wants to alleviate crime in The Bahamas because it is no longer okay only to be concerned about crime without taking steps to resolve it.

"We are addressing crime head on. In our schools we were concerned of what was happening there so we did something about it and that is to put the police officers on the school campus," Minster Pratt said.

One of the summit’s coordinators, Inspector Bruce Arnett, said that at the end of the summit The Bahamas would be more informed and hopefully the standard of communication to fight crime would be raised.

"Our overall objective is to achieve a more informed Bahamas. We want to raise the standard and give everyone an opportunity to partnership so that they can have a better understanding of what crime is and the effect of crime," Inspector Arnett said.

The summit will feature a variety of international speakers who have a background in criminal justice, including criminologists, forensic scientists, homicide investigators, superintendents of prisons and sociologist.

The summit will also cover a wide range of topics, including youth crimes, crimes against tourism, money laundering, hate crimes, drug trafficking in the Caribbean, identity theft and spousal abuse.