The social crisis in Appalachia (Part 1): Deprivation and inequality in the coalfields

By Naomi Spencer

This article is the first of a series on the history, economy, social and environmental conditions in the Appalachian region of the United States. World Socialist Web Site reporters recently visited the coalfields of southeastern Kentucky and southwestern West Virginia and interviewed residents on their conditions of life.

Apartments in downtown Welch, West Virginia

The region has long suffered a deep economic distress. One-third of the 100 poorest counties in the United States, as measured by median household income, are concentrated in the coalfields. This “pocket of poverty,” as economists sometimes refer to it, has, for decades, recorded extremely high levels of deprivation, unemployment and all the social problems that accompany them. This has been exacerbated by the dearth of government spending on the region and scarcity of basic infrastructure—freeways, commuter rail, airports, Internet connectivity, public universities—which lend the region a remote and disconnected air.

Yet in an immediate and direct way, the region is globally integrated. It continues to be one of the largest producers of coal in the country as well as a major lumber exporter. Fluctuations in the international energy and raw commodities markets have a powerful bearing on the local economy, prospects for the youth, and social infrastructure funded by tax revenue.

Moreover, as throughout the country, the deepening economic crisis has worsened joblessness, collapsed home values, forced the closures of public schools, clinics, and charity organizations, and further depressed communities in the coalfields. At the same time, billion dollar coal corporations have been the beneficiaries of ever-more generous tax breaks and “incentives” from the state governments of Kentucky and West Virginia. Safety, health, and environmental regulations over the coal industry have been systematically loosened, or simply ignored.

The result is a barefaced portrait of the extreme inequality that exists throughout the United States, with a handful of ultra-wealthy coal barons dominating every aspect of daily life of the highly exploited and deeply impoverished majority.

Every social indicator bears out the class relations. Double-digit poverty rates predominate, and the majority of adults are classified as “not in labor force.” Typical of the region, in Harlan County, Kentucky, 34 percent of residents live below the poverty threshold. Median household income stood at $23,600 in 2008—nearly half the state median, which is significantly lower than the national median of $52,000. Home values throughout the coalfields are likewise half the state median or less. Most children live in poverty, and many families subsist on less than $10,000 a year.

Boarded up storefronts in downtown Harlan, Kentucky

The majority of adults in the region did not graduate high school; 2004 figures indicate that 57 percent of the adult population did not receive a high school diploma or earn a general equivalency degree. The population has declined steadily as young people leave in search of jobs with livable wages.

Year after year, budget crises have been used to justify double-digit rises in tuition at public universities and community colleges, while aid has been cut. Young residents looking for an education and a job have limited options—the few jobs for young workers are concentrated in the low-wage retail and service sectors; for a university education, students are often compelled to leave the region, or join the military. Lack of basic infrastructure like broadband Internet service has precluded residents even from taking online college courses. Some 20 percent of residents still live without telephones, libraries are woefully underfunded, and cell phone towers are sparse in the steep terrain.

The budget crises in the states compound social need in the region. Funding cuts and shortfalls for social services over the past decade have impacted the mountainous counties, in particular. These areas, which are less accessible by major roads and distant from urban centers, have far fewer health resources and specialists and a far higher proportion of Medicaid-enrolled patients. Poor reimbursement rates, coupled with a high volume of paperwork and red tape, have discouraged many doctors, dentists, and other care providers from accepting Medicaid patients.

Local clinics are understaffed and forced to operate irregular hours and without basic supplies. Residents, describing their clinics as little more than first-aid stations, explained that for life-threatening and chronic problems, hospital emergency rooms were their only source of care. Untreated health problems like diabetes, tooth decay, mental illness, obesity, and other manageable conditions are of epidemic proportions. Black lung disease—produced by long years of working in the mines—emphysema and cancer are increasingly common.

Life expectancy, significantly lower than the national average, has stagnated or declined since 1983, in some counties by as much as five years. Levels of ill health and premature death parallel parts of Eastern Europe and Latin America.

West Virginia coal trains

Miles of train cars brimming with coal lumber through the center of such conditions every day, carrying loads worth millions of dollars at each pass. Over the course of the past three decades coal production has risen steadily while the mining workforce has been decimated. Today, far fewer miners—virtually all non-union—are extracting record loads of coal at massive mountaintop removal sites and dangerous retreat mining operations. Last year, less than 90,000 miners—a workforce under half the size of that of the 1980s—were responsible for extracting 1,170 million tons of coal, a third again as much as the production rates of 25 years ago.

Every year, dozens of Appalachian coal miners are killed in disasters caused by the deliberate disregard of operators and regulators alike for basic safety procedures, and thousands of current and former miners are diagnosed with black lung. Communities are subjected to increasing environmental devastation in the form of mudslides, flash flooding, and pollution caused by reckless surface mine operations. The water supplies of entire cities have been declared unsafe to drink because of contamination.

Section of mining operation in Pike County, Kentucky

The coal industry, deeply entwined in state politics, cost West Virginia and Kentucky tens of millions of dollars more than they pay in taxes, while fines for endangering workers and pollution are negligibly tiny, and usually ignored. Residents of the coalfields can find no representation for their grievances in elected officials and no defense in the legal and regulatory framework.

This state of affairs has been created through the active collusion of the political establishment, dominated by the Democratic Party, the environmental and safety regulatory agencies, and the United Mine Workers of America.

On the rare occasions that the national news media covers this region, for example, during the disaster at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine, which killed 29 West Virginia miners last April, it attempts to portray the population as submissive, religiously devout and resigned to a fate of deadly working conditions and poverty. In fact, the region has been the scene for some of the fiercest struggles of the American working class.

The miserable conditions in the coalfields cannot be understood without grasping the role of the UMWA, which, over the last three decades, betrayed strike after strike, abandoned and helped victimize militant miners and imposed endless concessions on its members at the behest of the coal bosses. This counts among the greatest betrayals of the working class, considering that the miners’ struggles for union recognition in the 1920s and 1930s, and mass struggles to improve working conditions and living standards in the 1960s and 1970s, were some of the most heroic and bloody in labor history.

The social crisis in Appalachia (Part 2)

22 July 2010

wsws.org

Bahamas Blog International

Bahamas: Victims of Sexual Exploitation In The Bahamian Society

Adult men 'exploiting teenage girls'
By NOELLE NICOLLS
Tribune Staff Reporter
nnicolls@tribunemedia.net:



TEENAGE girls engaged in a culture of transactional sex are not "prostitutes", but rather victims of exploitation, said Dr Sandra Dean-Patterson, director of the Bahamas Crisis Centre.

She said it is not accurate to say "teen prostitution is common among Bahamian youths", because teenagers under the age of 16 cannot consent to sex.

As victims of adult "predators", Dr Patterson said, it is key not to blame the teenagers.

"Teenage girls being exploited because of their vulnerability: that is what the real problem is," said Dr Patterson.

"The behaviour that people may see as fresh girls or girls selling their bodies in return for gifts is really symptomatic of their violation early in life. There is an increasing number of girls who are raped, sexually assaulted, molested, forced into sex, which are indicators of this kind of behaviour," she said.

Underage teenagers engaged in sexual relations with older men are victims of statutory rape. Any male over the age of 14 who has sex with someone under the age of 16 can be charged with statutory rape. If the sex is not consensual, regardless of the age, it is considered rape, according to an officer at the National Crime Prevention Office.

There have been convictions in the past for statutory rape, said the officer, but most incidents go unreported. When reports do come in, it is usually from parents, said the officer.

"If we get permission from the parents the child has no say about whether we do a physical examination," said the officer.

Police investigations include physical exams, witness testimonies and statements from the victim. The officer said sometimes teenagers do not want to "incriminate" their partners, but the police often have other means of investigating.

Prostitution:

Prostitution is usually an "organised activity", involving individuals having sex with a "series of persons in order to make a living", said Dr Patterson.

"Persons who are in relationships with one or several persons and using those relationships to fulfil material needs that would be more transactional sex, but that is not prostitution," said Dr Patterson. In either case, with an underage teen, it is "exploitation".

In Bahamian society, there has been a normalisation of behaviour that is tantamount to "prostitution", said psychiatrist Dr David Allen, based on his research over the past three years.

"(The girls in the focus group) said they didn't see any problem with using their body for survival. They don't call it prostitution. They call it survival and that is just the way things are right now," said Dr Allen.

Some teenagers agree, it is a part of the "common culture" for young girls and boys, from as early as 13 years old, to engage in sexual relationships with older men, between 20 and 40 years old.

The reasons why vary: some do it out of financial desperation; others do it for status, material gain, or love, said a 15 year old, high school student.

"It is just friends for benefits. Some do fall in love with the older men even though they are using them. Some of the older men fall in love with the teenager, and the older men get physical and abuse them if the girl doesn't want to do anything anymore. Some of the girls get scared and don't know what to do. Some of them turn to drugs. Some of them go to the police station but they wouldn't help them at all," she said.

Risks:

The teenager said young girls are looking for more "support"; however, they feel "someone always wants something" from them and does not really have their best interests at heart.

"When they ask for the support, they find some people to give it to them, but in a wrong way. If I ask you for help you always want something in return from me," she said.

Some teenagers say they know the risks are too high and the behaviour is inappropriate, but it is unclear whether they are in the minority or majority.

"It is not okay behaviour, because them grown man is too old. All of them are trying to have sex and then go. They give the girls $10 and then tell them go. They are married, so the only thing they are doing is destroying their bodies and going back to their wives. They don't care about the little girls," said a teenager.

"Some of the girls try to leave out of the relationships, but some of the men are abusive so they are scared. They are willing to take the risk because they are thinking about the money," she said.

Another teenager said: "I don't think girls are emotionally mature enough to be in a relationship with the older men. Most of the girls who actually go through it, they have low self esteem and lack of knowledge; they are not very smart so anything people tell them they believe," said a teenager.

"Most of the time when certain men come up to you they are pretty smart. They have their talk down pat. Mostly they will say they could take care of you, buy whatever you want, buy you a phone. These days girls go with men who have cars," she said.

Parents are struggling to cope with the situation, according to Dr Patterson, particularly the "tremendous number of single mothers."

"There may be some mothers who set their children up to have relationships with adult men, or they may close their eyes to it because the girls are bringing home things to help the family out. As a parent once you close your eyes to that kind of thing then the child begins to get a sense of power from the feeling that they are providing for the family and that they are in charge," said Dr Patterson.

"When the mother tries to discipline the child they do not listen because they have been allowed to be a provider for the family and they become an uncontrollable child," she said.

Without intervention, Dr Patterson said teenage girls will not understand they are being "violated", and they will become more and more vulnerable.

"They can also internalise their anger, and then they may start to lash out and fight and be super aggressive," she said.

July 23, 2010

tribune242

Bahamas Blog International

Are we preparing for the Cuban economic hurricane?

jamaicaobserver editorial:

The United States policy of an embargo against Cuba has been a comprehensive failure. Castro's administration has survived.

The redundant embargo should have been abolished long ago. Had it not been for hubris and an outdated determination to impose its will as a global superpower, the US would have stopped jousting with this imaginary enemy. Just how much of an anachronism the embargo is has been clearly demonstrated by the fact that the US has diplomatic relations and trade with Vietnam, a country with which it fought a full-scale war. The Organisation of American States has removed the ban on Cuba's membership clearing the way for Cuba to rejoin the organisation.

The outstanding internationalism has been blemished by flawed human rights and the absence of pluralist democracy. Critics in the Western world, in particular the US, have used the shortcomings of Cuban democracy as the justification for an economic blockade and a campaign of political isolation. Admirers of Cuban self-reliance and resistance to US hegemony have been willing to turn a blind eye to the palpable restraints on individual freedom.

The appointment of Raul Castro to the presidency of Cuba after an apprenticeship of almost half-a-century has brought important changes. He has moved to liberalise access to consumer goods the rest of the world takes for granted, such as cellular phones. Some private farming and more foreign travel have been permitted.

Learning the lesson of the implosion of the Soviet Union and the amazing economic development of China, the Cuban Government is moving towards "Market Leninism". The objective is to improve the standard of living by diversifying beyond sugar and tourism. This will require international trade and foreign investment and increased participation in the capitalist world economy.

The remaining impediment was the continued imprisonment of political opponents. That is now out of the way. It is an opportunity for the US to switch its foreign policy towards Cuba from isolation to engagement.

Exporters and potential investors in the US are salivating at the prospect of re-entry to the Cuban economy. There is already a flourishing trade in US food to Cuba. The business interests are pressing the Congress and a willing but coy Obama administration to normalise relations as it has done with former enemies Germany, Japan, China, Vietnam, and North Korea.

A change in US policy is imminent and Cuba's release of political prisoners is the "olive branch". It is now only a matter of time.

When it happens it will have the most profound effect on Jamaica and the Caribbean. The most worrying is the impact of competition from Cuba for foreign investment, export markets, development aid and tourism.

Cuba has the advantage of being the largest market in the Caribbean, a new tourism destination to US travellers, an undersupplied market and a literate, disciplined and inexpensive labour force.

Jamaica will have to compete and we can do so successfully if we make the necessary preparations.

In the same way that the Government has an emergency plan to cope with hurricanes, then it should immediately prepare a plan to cope with the intense economic competition which the return of Cuba to the global economy will cause.

The warning signs for this Category 5 economic hurricane are plain to see. There is no reason to be caught off guard.

jamaicaobserver editorial

Teenage girls set to create a new wave of terror in The Bahamas

Teenage girls 'are new street thugs'
By NOELLE NICOLLS
Tribune Staff Reporter
nnicolls@tribunemedia.net:


TEENAGE girls look set to create a new wave of terror in the Bahamas, leading psychologist Dr David Allen has warned.

Dr Allen said a Harvard University study predicted that violence among girls was threatening to eclipse violence among teenage boys, who originally "led the way".

He said in the Bahamas there are early signs of this trend, and more needs to be done to look into the situation.

"I write with a sense of pain, confusion; a sense that we have a group of people growing up in our midst who we don't know, we are not studying. I am just amazed at what I am finding out here," said Dr Allen. "The young girls seem to be extremely violent."

One teenager, who attends a New Providence public school, said she agrees that "girls are fighting more than boys", but she said girl fights are less violent.

"The boys fight because of gangs. They would not fight over girls. The boys always fight with weapons. The girls don't usually fight with weapons. The girls do more of the cat fight," said the student.

"Girls mostly fight because they are fighting over boys or they are trying to get known. They go around picking fights, making trouble, so they could be known as the gangster girl. When people are scared of them and don't want to mess with them they can take advantage of people by asking them for money, just money. If you say you don't have lunch money they will try to boss you around and hit you," she said.

"If another girl is talking to the girl's boyfriend she would fight over that. That happens almost daily. Little small fights, like rowing. They would row for a couple days and then they would start fighting."

Several years ago there was concern expressed about a seeming rise in female gangs. The high school student said: "That is not really going on. In my school, ain no girls is check for the gangs. The girls who fight is not really because of the gangs, usually over boyfriends, or (interpersonal) conflicts. The female gang thing did not really catch on."

Teachers know about the fights in school, according to one student, but they stay inside the classrooms and "they don't get in it" in order to "protect themselves".

One junior school principal said she does not believe there has been a rise in girls involved in violence.

"I beg to disagree. To me we are seeing more of the gang violence coming to surface with persons crossing boundaries. According to the area you live in you just cannot go into certain areas. That is what is causing the friction amongst our boys," said the principal.

"Being in the school system we don't see so many girls involved in fights. I seriously can't see it. We would have to look at an in depth study. Dr Allen is probably not seeing a cross section of our community, where he is dealing with students from the upper class," she said.

July 21, 2010

tribune242

Bahamas Blog International

Washington Still Has Problems With Democracy in Latin America

By Mark Weisbrot - CEPR:

Imagine if Barack Obama, upon taking office in January 2009, had decided to deliver on his campaign promise to “end business as usual in Washington so we can bring about real change.”

Imagine if he had rejected the architects of the pro-Wall Street policies that led to the economic collapse - such as Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and the stable of former Goldman Sachs employees running the Treasury Department - and instead appointed Nobel Prize-winning economists Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz to key positions, including the Federal Reserve chairmanship.

Instead of Hillary Clinton, who lost the Democratic presidential primary because of her unrelenting support for the Iraq war, imagine if he had chosen Sen. Russ Feingold (D., Wis.) for secretary of state, or someone else interested in fulfilling the popular desire to get out of Afghanistan.

Imagine a real health-care reform bill instead of the health-insurance reform we got - one that didn't give the powerful pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies a veto.

It goes without saying that Obama would be vilified by the major media outlets. The seething hostility of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh would be matched by more mainstream news organizations, which would accuse the president of polarizing the nation and engaging in dangerous demagoguery.

With most of the establishment media and institutions against him, Obama would face a constant battle for political survival - although he might well triumph through direct, populist appeals to the majority of voters. This is what a number of left-of-center Latin American leaders have done:

In Ecuador, President Rafael Correa was reelected by a large margin in 2009, despite strong opposition from the country’s media.

In Bolivia, Evo Morales has brought stability and record growth to a country with a tradition of governments that didn’t last more than a year. And he has done so in spite of the most hostile media in the hemisphere, as well as unrelenting, sometimes violent opposition from Bolivia’s traditional elite.

And Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has survived a military coup attempt and other efforts to topple his government, winning three presidential elections, each one by a larger margin.

All these presidents took on entrenched oligarchies and fought hard to deliver on their promises.

Morales, the first indigenous president in a country with an indigenous majority, re-nationalized fossil-fuel industries, created jobs through public investment, and won approval of a more democratic constitution. Correa doubled spending on health care and canceled $3.2 billion in foreign debt that he declared illegitimate. Under Chavez, who took control of his country’s oil industry, poverty was cut in half, and extreme poverty dropped by more than 70 percent.

These presidents faced another obstacle to delivering on their promises that Obama would not: the opposition of the most powerful country in the world. The same was true of former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, who had to battle the Washington-dominated International Monetary Fund to implement his economic policies, which made Argentina the fastest-growing economy in the hemisphere for six years.

Chavez, of course, has been the most demonized in the U.S. media. That is not because of what he has said or done, but because he is sitting on 100 billion barrels of oil. Washington has a particular problem with oil-producing states that don't follow orders - whether they are dictatorships (Iraq), theocracies (Iran), or democracies (Venezuela).

All of these leaders had hoped Obama would pursue a different, more enlightened Latin American policy, but that hasn’t happened. It seems that Washington, which was comfortable with the dictators and oligarchs who ran the show in the region for decades, still has problems with democracy in its former “back yard.”

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He has written numerous research papers on economic policy, especially on Latin America and international economic policy. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000) and president of Just Foreign Policy. He is also co-writer of Oliver Stone’s current documentary, “South of the Border,” now playing in theaters. He can be reached at weisbrot@cepr.net.

Source: Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)

July 19th 2010

venezuelanalysis

Bahamas Blog International

A Tale Of Two Extraditions

By Saul Landau - Z Space

The US government demanded that Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding extradite a drug dealer. When Venezuela made similar demands on Washington, for arguably the Hemisphere’s most notorious terrorist, the Justice Department brushed off the request.

Compare the recent arrest in Jamaica of “Dudus” (Christopher Coke) to stand trial in New York for drug and arms trafficking to Washington’s response to Venezuela’s extradition petition for Luis Posada Carriles, aka the Osama bin Laden of the Western Hemisphere for plotting the October 6, 1976 bombing of a Cuban commercial airliner over Barbados. All 73 crew and passengers died.

Evidence abounds pointing to his culpability including declassified cables from the CIA. An October 12, 1976 CIA cable from Caracas states that “Posada was overheard to say that `Now we are going to hit a Cuban airplane’.”

22 years later, Posada told NY Times reporters Ann Bardach and Larry Rohter (July13, 1998) he had orchestrated a series of hotel bombings in Cuba to dissuade tourism. An Italian tourist died in one of the blasts.

Posada’s captured underlings – arrested by police after the bombs exploded -- named him as the criminal author. A recent New Jersey Federal Grand Jury gathered evidence showing Posada used money and personnel from Miami to carry out the hotel bombings.

However, instead of charging him with terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder Justice invented a legal inanity and charged Posada with immigration fraud: lying to US officials when he entered the United States in 2004. Since then, the Justice Department has created reasons to delay the case – perhaps as Jose Pertierra suggests, so he will die before going to trial. http://machetera.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/waiting-for-posada-carriles-to...

Compare this dallying with a bona fide terrorist to the “extradite Dudus or else” position taken with Jamaica’s government. Jamaican security forces killed some 70 residents trying to capture Dudus in his Kingston neighborhood. But Washington refuses to extradite the mass murderer Posada.

As Washington intimidated Jamaica’s government over Dudus the drug and gun peddler they ignored the fact that millions of US citizens consume drugs imported from Jamaica; and US banks that launder money from the trade.

But a more sinister fact underlines the Dudus and Posada cases. Both of criminals owe their careers to Washington’s 50 year war against Cuba.

In 1976, Prime Minister Michael Manley told me during the filming of his campaign film, of an unusual invitation. In January 1976, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, vacationing at the Rockefeller estate in Jamaica, invited Manley to visit to convince him to withdraw his support of Cuban troops in Angola. (Castro had sent troops there in October 1975 at the Angolan government’s request to stop CIA and South African invasions of that newly independent African country.) Kissinger’s grimaced as Manley reiterated his backing for Castro’s Africa policies.

“He then assured me,” Manley chuckled, “I should not worry about CIA activities in Jamaica.” But, he said, some interesting “coincidences” occurred shortly after the visit.

Norman Descoteaux arrived to head the CIA station in Kingston, an expert on destabilization campaigns in South America. As journalists arrived in Kingston to cover World Bank and IMF meetings, violence exploded in Kingston’s western slums. Tourists exposed to the media accounts would have had good reason to change plans for a Jamaican vacation. Soon afterward, security forces arrested armed youth who admitted they were getting trained to attack the government, Other gunmen killed two policemen.

Manley applied “heavy manners.” He revived a special court permitting the arrest without bail of persons with unlicensed firearms and formed unarmed, community self-defense groups. The CIA learned from its “mistakes,” however.

In Manley’s 1980 campaign for re-election, the violence far exceeded the 1976 carnage. I heard the nightly roar of gunfire in Kingston streets and filmed people weeping for  their dead kin outside a recently torched housing project in a pro-Manley district. Thousands died in that pre-election period. The gangs bought by Manley’s opponent, Edward Seaga, and the CIA successfully destabilized the government.

Manley lost; Seaga became Prime Minister and the first foreign visitor to the Reagan White House.

Dudus’ father, Lester, emerged from the violence campaigns as head of the Shower Posse (they sprayed their victims with automatic weapons) in West Kingston. Having secured a political alliance with the winner in 1980, and possessing arms from the CIA, he began dealing drugs and weapons.

So powerful had the posse become – now under Dudis the son -- that Labor Party chief and now Prime Minister Bruce Golding tried to defuse the US extradition request for nine months. The State Department assured him that continued resistance would endanger US-Jamaican relations (aid money) and his political career.

But Washington sneers at Venezuelan pressure just as George H. W. Bush in 1990 derided his own Justice Department’s strong advice against pardoning Orlando Bosch, Posada’s co-conspirator in the airline bombing. Judges play along with the charade. One magistrate, without fact or testimony, ruled against Posada's extradition to Venezuela because Posada’s lawyer claimed Venezuela would torture him “while in custody."

The Caribbean states (Caricom) called the 1976 Cubana airline bombing “terrorism in Caribbean airspace.” Ricky Siingh writing in the Jamaica Observer said “no double standards on implementation of bilateral extradition treaties should be permitted on the part of Jamaica and the USA in the case of Christopher Coke; or that involving Venezuela and America for the extradition of Posada.” June 20?? Accusing the United States of double standards is like charging a prostitute with having sex. Indeed, US behavior in the Posada case gives hypocrisy a bad name.

Hubris with Jamaica over a druggie! The stalling game played with Venezuela over a terrorist! Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a nation of law?

Landau directed Michael Manley’s campaign films in 1976 and 1980. Counterpunch published his A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD.

Source: Z Communications

July 19th 2010

venezuelanalysis

Bahamas Blog International

The roots of The Bahamas' crime epidemic

The roots of our crime epidemic
By PACO NUNEZ
Tribune News Editor:



BAHAMIANS are afraid. A recently circulated questionnaire revealed a public "deeply troubled" by the explosion of crime and violence in society.

Crime has been unacceptably high for decades, but over the past few years it has reached unprecedented levels. Many now say they feel like prisoners in their own homes, afraid of being attacked each time they step outside.

As people become increasingly concerned about their safety, calls have mounted for more serious measures to be taken.

Pro-hanging marches have become a common occurrence, and the vast majority of those polled said they believe some form of intervention by foreign law enforcement agencies is now necessary. There have even been murmurs of support for vigilante justice in the face of what is seen as an ineffective judicial system.

Our political class and some senior police officers would have us believe it's not as bad as all that. Admitting that crime is at an all-time high, they say the public perception of danger is nevertheless exaggerated; fear of crime is worse than crime itself. Even if this were true, it is difficult to understand why heightened alarm is in itself a bad thing (except, of course for the reputations of those charged with keeping the public safe). It stands to reason that the more fearful I am - or at least, the more alert and aware - the more likely I am to remain alive and unharmed.

In any case, the newly-released Report on Crime: Root Causes of Crime - an intensive study three years in the making - would seem to contradict this politically convenient narrative. It suggests crime and violence are not only perpetuated at the fringes of society as we have been repeatedly told, but fester at the very core of who we are as a people.

Led by eminent psychologist Dr David Allen, the research team repeated the approach used by the medical journal Lancet in its 1986 report on the cocaine epidemic in the Bahamas. In addition to conducting a series of confidential interviews, the research team organised focus groups consisting of:

* Families of murder victims,

* Those involved in programmes for students guilty of violent or disorderly behaviour,

* Chronic drug addicts,

* Troubled teenagers and parents,

* Public and private psychotherapy groups,

* Church groups,

* Individuals from violent neighbourhoods

The results indicated five primary causes of crime and violence in the Bahamas:

Chronic Violent

Drug Syndrome

The report noted that the Bahamas was the first country outside South America to experience a national crack cocaine addiction problem.

It said: "The chronic violent drug syndrome (CVDS) is the continuing devastating blow delivered to our country by the 1980s cocaine epidemic", noting that similar syndromes exist in Mexico, Colombia, Jamaica, and some US cities including Miami and Washington DC.

CVDS encourages serious crime in a number of ways, primarily through the violence and executions attendant upon the creation and maintenance of drug trafficking empires, "creating fear and panic among the public and empowering the drug barons in turf wars," the study said.

The syndrome also leads to increasing numbers of drug addicts, two thirds of whom are involved in multiple crimes, according to the research. "In and out of prison, these persons are cognitively impaired and find it hard to hold down a job," the study said.

It added that although the rate of new crack addictions does not seem to be increasing at the moment, there is a widespread and growing marijuana epidemic among children age 10 through adolescence. "This destroys educational potential since the brain is not fully developed until the mid-20s."

The study notes that the proliferation of firearms, both legal and illegal, is also a symptom of CVDS. "Guns and drugs go together. Young men tell me that getting a gun is easier than going to the mall," Dr Allen said.

This leads to murder becoming common and life being considered cheap. The drug business is by nature a "kill or be killed" existence and cultivating a dangerous reputation is both a survival tactic in a highly armed society and the primary means of getting ahead in the world.

One reaction to this is the formulation of gangs, which men and women - whether involved in the drug business or not - join for "affirmation, safety, protection, connection and empowerment".

Of course, in such an atmosphere the general work ethic and thereby the concept of personal property eventually cease to have any meaning. "With a gun, what is yours is mine. With a gun even if you lose the dice game, you still win," Dr Allen said.

As a consequence, regular citizens begin to live in fear and therefore decide to seek gun licenses.

The crack cocaine epidemic has also laid siege to the nuclear family in the Bahamas as it engulfs parents, leaving children to fend largely for themselves - particularly in terms of the formation of the ethical dimension of their character. Children remain "un-bonded and lack habilitation and social skills. There is no motivation for education in the home," the study said.

All this leads to sprees of violent crime which are not confined to any sector of society, as "the gun is the law in the drug world".

Anger

Unsurprising considering the consequences of CVDS, the researchers interviewed numerous Bahamians whose immediate response to becoming angry was to talk about killing, poisoning or suicide. This applied to one third of those interviewed, some of whom came from "respectable families".

"We have an anger problem in our midst," the report concluded, adding the frightening assertion that this often renders individuals literally unable to stop themselves from committing violent acts.

Dr Allen explained that poor childhood conditioning can lead to a society in which when individuals feel wounded, "instead of doing our grief work, we give over to destructive anger and shame, leading to resentment, bitterness, hardness of heart and finally grievance. At the grievance point we enter the 'blind spot'.

"My work shows we become possessed by evil or negative energy. Young men who have committed murder or extreme violence describe being taken over by a negative force. . . One man told me, 'All of a sudden I could not stop stabbing him. Looking back, I felt something was controlling me'."

While any explanation of individual behaviour which eliminates personal responsibility from the equation should be approached with extreme caution, the research team behind the study make a strong case for the argument that many young offenders have at least a diminished responsibility, as their behaviour is to some extend governed by factors beyond their control.

The study explained that anger causes diffuse physiological arousal (DPA) - the heart rate increases, blood pressure rises and the pulse quickens. "Because of the intimate connection of the heart to the brain, when the pulse rises 10 per cent above normal, the IQ drops 20 to 30 points," it said.

In addition, a person who lacks appropriate strategies for dealing with anger often suffers from alexithymia, or an inability to express feelings or strong emotions.

"If a person cannot express 'I am angry' or 'I am hurt' they will act it out. For example, a young man who beat a woman said he wanted her to feel what he was feeling. When asked what he was feeling, he said, 'I don't know'," the study noted.

Economic downturn

Men, the study contends, derive a great deal of their self-esteem from their employment.

"Men without work become angry at their wife or girlfriend and the children suffer. Some persons respond by a wish to die (suicide). Although there is no direct causal connection between poverty and crime, there is a clear connection between the loss of money or status and increased rage or suicidal ideation," it said, noting the case of a local woman who said that after recently losing his job, her boyfriend kept a hangman's noose in the bedroom, telling her he could no longer afford to give her what she wanted, "so when the time was right, he would hang himself".

The study added: "Young girls make themselves available to older men in a form of prostitution which is becoming increasingly common. This is seen as an acceptable way to pay for education or family bills, eg, cable, electricity and water".

Affects of child abuse

In an Insight article published last year, Dr Allen said his work over the years has revealed that child abuse is alarmingly widespread in this country.

The study notes that nearly all troubled children are victims of some type of abuse, especially physical and sexual abuse.

Trauma

The study noted that on average, each victim of violence has a "sociophile" of 100 people, including family members, friends, neighbours, et cetera, who are in turn traumatised by the victim's trauma. If one pauses to consider the thousands of violent crimes perpetuated in this country on an annual basis, the number of affected persons is revealed to be truly staggering.

The symptoms of trauma include several which can lead to yet more violent crime, such as:

* Anger and a need for revenge. Dr Allen tells of a woman who rushed into a local shelter wielding a machete and saying someone had just killed her brother. "Because her brother was the supporter of the family and acted like the father she felt obligated to kill his murderer," he explained. Had it not been for the intervention of a member of the research team, the woman might have become a murderer herself.

* Fear of being alone. This often drives young people into the waiting arms of gangs. One young boy interviewed as part of the study said a friend of his was killed because he was alone. "He should have been with his boys," the young man said.

* Magical thinking. Dr Allen said a young boy told him: "If you get stabbed, just hold your chest and you will not die. My friend did it and he lived."

* Short life expectancy. A group of 12 to 15 year-olds told the research team they did not expect to live to be 25 or 30, because they know someone who was killed.

* Glorification of violence. A 15-year-old who stabbed another boy said violence is cool. "If you kill you get stripes and you will only spend six months in jail," he said.

* Suicidal tendencies. When a young person committed suicide, friends said the person was better off, and they wish they could do the same.

* Poor cognitive skills, disinterest in school, inability to concentrates and poor impulse controls. This leads to fights and stabbings, the study found.

Response

According to Dr Allen and his team, what the Bahamas must do is replace this culture of violence and destruction with one of "life and hope". In light of the formidable obstacles to such a transition outlined in the study, this is by no means an easy task.

Dr Allen suggests that we need to develop leaders in all segments of this community; individuals who "absorb chaos, exude calm and instill hope".

He added: "Studies show that child abuse can be greatly reduced by neighbourhood walkarounds. If every church adopted the community around their church, and did weekly walkabouts they would observe child abuse, neglect and other crimes in the making. This is a powerful crime prevention process. Using this methodology, since there is a church on every corner, we could revolutionise the Bahamas in three years."

Dr Allen also recommended that we teach people the skills necessary to deal with anger and trauma peacefully and constructively, beginning with simple steps like dealing with provocation by slow breathing and visualisation techniques.

The question is, how can a society driven by traumatic circumstances to cynicism and hard-heartedness ever open up to such methods?

This is a problem we will probably continue to struggle with, if not forever, at least for the foreseeable future. One thing, however, is certain - we will never solve it by pretending that crime and violence are the purview of a small, fringe element of society.

Violent crime may not exist in all places at all times, but the seeds of aggression and criminality have been sown into the very fabric of the Bahamian character over the past few decades and no one is immune to the consequences. The sooner we admit this and get on with finding the best way to tackle it, the better.

What do you think?

pnunez@tribunemedia.net

July 19, 2010

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