Police Youth Club to help troubled youth in Westmoreland

WESTERN BUREAU:

HEAD OF the Westmoreland Police Division, Senior Superintendent Robert Gordon, says the youth club movement of the Jamaica Constabulary Force will be introduced to young people as part of the social intervention arm of the zone of special operations (ZOSO) now in sections of Savanna-la-Mar to help curb the crime surge.

“Very soon we are going to form groups such as police clubs within these environments and we want each one to encourage the other, so that as we start to roll out those projects, you are a part of it because it can only redound to greater safety and security for all,” Gordon said recently during an intervention symposium geared towards developing positive role models among men and boys in the parish capital.

The National Police Youth Club (PYC) movement was established in 1954 through the Community Safety and Security Branch of the JCF and is known for volunteerism, with members providing assistance to the aged in communities across the island, working with children during homework sessions and after-school programmes. The PYC also engages its members in several sporting disciplines, including football and track and field.

SSP Gordon said the PYC’s executive structure consists of community members and is supported by a police officer, who serves as the leader and conduit to the JCF and the wider community.

“We are pretty much advanced on the Russia side,” SSP Gordon explained. “We are more advanced because of previous work done in the community. We are working assiduously to get those off the ground.”

Turning to the month-old ZOSO in sections of northern Savanna-la-Mar and covering the crime-plagued communities of Russia, Dexter Street and Dalling Street, Gordon noted that it has impacted the space positively.

“We are doing well. We have so far gone through a month and you have shown that you can live together in harmony and in love,” noted SSP Gordon, while addressing persons drawn from the war-torn communities of Russia, Dexter Street, Dalling Street, Coke Street at New Market Oval.

“We expect that what we are doing here today will be something fertile and something that will grow and make this community of New Market Oval a place where people will want to come, do business and raise their families,” he added.

Meanwhile, former violence interrupter with the Peace Management Initiative (PMI), Bishop Oniel Russell, said in a Gleaner interview that the police youth club is a good vehicle to bring young people together in a peaceful manner. However, he said a lot of groundwork will be required to have these clubs operational.

NOTHING TO DO

“The police youth club was very good for the community. It was launched in the 1990s where the young people then used to gravitate to the activities. But the vibrance of the club died when violence began to turn its head, at a time when persons in the community who are involved in crime no longer want to see the police,” said Russell.

“In the absence of the police youth club, there was nothing for these young people to do, so I formed the Coke Street Citizens’ Association in 2010 to facilitate them and to get back a relationship with the police,” he explained.

Therefore, Russell, who is also the president of the Coke Street Citizens’ body, says police will have to carefully strategise its plan towards restarting the youth movement and strained relationship over the years.

“With the police planning on bringing back the youth, it is going to take a lot of work and the trust will have to be restored,” the community leaders argued. “The people in these communities do not trust the police, so it could pose a challenge.”

He noted that the club died a natural death when the crime surge started, along with the destruction of the building which once housed the meetings, during the passage of Hurricane Ivan in 2004.