Crime is rooted like a canker in today’s so-called modern Bahamas

Crime & Social Hypocrisy
The Bahama Journal Editorial


Something insidious has been going on for some time now; with that ‘insidious’ thing being that evolution of a state of mind where so very many Bahamians are wont to complain about crime; all the while turning a blind eye to the kinds of crimes most of them routinely commit and which they routinely get away with.

Here we reference the extent to which stealing by reason of employment; other artful appropriation of things belonging to others and other such slick maneuvers that end with the same result.

And so, today the fact remains that, we now live in a land where while paradox and irony routinely cavort; social hypocrisy abounds.

Here we need only cite some of those ribald instances where thieves would sit around stolen tables and where they would feast on stolen food – and as they sometimes do, these fine people would chat amiably –and sometimes with the greatest of alarm – about the extent to which crime was on the rise in today’s Bahamas.

This kind of scene is both appalling and revelatory – appalling because these types are clearly oblivious to the extent to which their slick crimes against property is itself one of the more common expressions underlying the fact that crime is rooted like a canker in today’s so-called modern Bahamas.

And for sure, not only is crime deeply rooted; there is also a sense we are getting that crimes such as those that involve pilferage and other instances of what we would call exemplars of the ‘soft’ rip-off.

Here we find those instances where employees routinely steal time owed their employers; where these same employees appropriate office property, use them for their own purposes and who do so without permission.

These are all examples of theft done the slick way.

Evidently, these thieves could care less when they learn that, their honest neighbors, family and friends are the ones who will ultimately pay the price for crimes they do not commit.

Here we might cite some of what former Bahamas Chamber of Commerce President Dionisio D'Aguilar has already said about these kinds of criminals and the damage they get away with. Here he notes that, internal theft causes Bahamian businesses mind-boggling losses every year.

Mr. D'Aguilar also said that shrinkage, which includes many items, including spoiled goods, could cost this country's food-stores a combined $15 million a year.

We also understand that, Abaco Markets' president Gavin Watchorn has a similar tale of woe concerning the extent to which his firm has been victimized by the criminals in their Company’s employ.

Watchorn has also been reported as having said that, the level of stealing inflicted on his food-stores - both by staff and customers- had increased by 100 per cent.

This is absolutely disgraceful.

Yet again, we note that, in the end it is the Bahamian consumer who pays for these losses as theft is factored into the price of the goods.

Over the weekend, criminals did what they usually do – they went about their businesses that involve ripping other people off; raping and abusing some others and for sure, either maiming or killing some others.

Sadly, this is par for the course in today’s crime-ridden and sin-sickened Bahamas.

It is precisely this kind of society that has produced the kind of people who struck the Carnival this past weekend.

Here we cite the caper that involved the slickly successful theft of some motor-cycles used at the Carnival site in Oakes Field.

As we have read, “…Under the cover of darkness early last Saturday morning, thieves cut open a three-foot hole in the carnival’s perimeter fence, broke the lock of a trailer and made off with three motorcycles used to perform inside the “Globe of Death”.

“Becky Hitchcock, general manger of the carnival, said a show dog kept within the same trailer as the motorcycles alerted staff to the robbery. However, by the time the staff was alerted, the thieves were gone…”

And so, even as we note that the thieves were gone, note also that the crooks took with them two red and white 100cc Honda motorcycles and one red and white 70cc Honda motorcycle.

While we are today hopeful that the police will get to the bottom of this heist; we are not going to hold our breath as we wait.

But for sure, even as we might cite example after example of the kind of crimes and abuses Bahamians routinely inflict on each other, we do no such thing.

Instead, we call upon each and every Bahamian parent and all others who care for children to teach and show them how they should love and respect all other people; thus putting them on that path that would prevent them from becoming law-breakers, however artful.

January 24, 2011

The Bahama Journal Editorial

Bahamas Blog International

Crime Pays in The Bahamas...

When Home-Making Fails
The Bahama Journal Editorial



We sometimes have cause to marvel at the fact that there was once a time in the Bahamas when hard-working men earned enough money and when the social circumstances then prevalent called on women to be home-makers for a brood of children.

Coming with that regime were also circumstances where communities of people took care of their old; formed their mutual aid societies and for sure, also made penny upon penny provision for the burial of their dead.

We also know that, the world whereof some now wax nostalgic was not fated to last; it was washed away in that flood that brought with it year-round, mass tourism; the so-called ‘liberation’ of women – and a culture of materialism, itself grounded in a system where people were taught and evidently did think that they could buy now and pay later.

And since we live in a world where one thing invariably leads to another, we now live in a world where that day of reckoning has come.

And now that it is here, we have a situation on our hands where materialism and consumerism are rampant; where crimes against persons and property are high and rising – and in a time and space where children are viewed as god-awful hindrances to parents, their neighbors, other family – and so-called friends.

In turn, we now have a situation where some of these urchins grow up with the certain knowledge that life is hard; that they can make it to the top if they sell themselves; if they learn how to lie, cheat, steal and otherwise perfectly emulate behavior they see at home, on the street – and sadly, in some of their parents’ church-homes.

Compounding the matter are all those jungle-like forces coming in from abroad [and here particularly with popular culture as produced and packaged in the United States of America] some of which popularize the savage notion that, you could or should get rich quick or die trying.

And so, today we have a situation where state authorities in today’s Bahamas are seemingly at a loss as to how they could or should [legally speaking] deal with the consequences attendant upon this loss of that old spirit that once pervaded society in The Bahamas.

That spirit once found residence in some of the most humble abodes scattered throughout these islands, rocks and cays.

Alas! Those days are apparently gone with the wind.

As most Bahamians would and could now attest, few among them [namely today’s busy, hard-working men and women] have practically no time left for those activities were once subsumed under the rubric of home-making.

This sad state of affairs brings with it a host of deleterious consequences for not only these men and women, but also for their children.

As it currently seems to us – one of the cruelest consequences brought forward with the break-down of home-making has to do with child neglect and on occasion, down-right abuse.

In time, these children grow up. And for sure, as they come to maturity, they emulate behaviors learned at home, on the street, in their schools, churches and elsewhere – thus reproducing the warped worlds from which they have been thrown; thus today’s mixed up, sad Bahamas.

And for sure, as we have previously commented crime pays in the Bahamas.

Indeed, such is the extent to which mistrust is rampant in today’s Bahamas that College of The Bahamas students routinely complain how they must jealously guard their books, computers and the like – this because some of their school-mates are cold enough and calculating enough to rip them off.

The same kind of thievery takes place at the secondary level.

And for sure, it also takes place at the level of the work-place.

Simply put, lots and lots of our people are not trust-worthy.

Add to this incompetence on the part of the police – and what you then get is a situation where crime pays; and where in the past year, the police only solved half of the four robbery cases reported for islands outside New Providence and Grand Bahama.

But when we get to New Providence, we find a perfectly disturbing picture where the police detection rates in the categories of attempted robbery, robbery, armed robbery and unlawful sexual intercourse were six, eight, 10 and 29 percent respectively.

Evidently, crime pays in New Providence, home to the vast majority of the Bahamian people – and a gateway to the world.

Criminals and their feral cohorts continue to rape, rob and pillage – seemingly at will.

A part of the explanation for this sorry state of affairs can be attributed to the fact that crime does pay in a Bahamas where the detection rate for crimes committed is so alarmingly low – and when and where home-making now fails.

January 21, 2011

The Bahama Journal Editorial

Bahamas Blog International