‘Youth as Agents for Change in Crime Prevention’ will be the focus of a webinar that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat and the CARICOM Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS) will host on Tuesday, 19 August 2025.
The webinar is being held to mark International Youth Day, which was observed on 12 August under the theme ‘Local Youth Actions for the SDGs and Beyond’.
Progress under two European Union (EU) funded programmes to improve the administration of criminal justice and to strengthen law enforcement and border security in CARIFORUM States was recently assessed by the respective Steering Committees overseeing the Programmes.
“I am on record as saying that we need to launch a war on gangs of a similar magnitude and nature to the war on terror.”
Executive Directors and other senior officials of Caribbean Community Institutions have updated Secretary-General Dr. Carla Barnett about the adverse effect of the current geopolitical developments on their ability to deliver essential services to the Region.
The developments were highlighted during a virtual meeting which the Secretary-General convened with Executive Directors and other senior officials of Community Institutions on Tuesday, 29 April.
"Sometimes we focus on the challenges, but our conversation today was more about the opportunities for meaningful engagement with young people. We spoke about mental health and well-being and the experience of CARICOM with the strong leadership of our young people to find solutions." - Dr Felipe Paullier, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Youth Affairs
CARICOM Heads of Government continue to be actively concerned about the implications of crime and violence on the social development of the Region. To date, two symposiums on Crime and Violence as a Public Health Issue have been convened, keeping at the forefront of the deliberations the importance of balancing the rights of the individual and the public safety interests of the whole of society.
“We must take a very strong approach to it from a legislative perspective to create the laws that will enable us to have surveillance to detain them - of course, within the accepted rules of human rights and the treatment of citizens - but certainly, there needs to be what we call in Jamaica enhanced measures to treat with this new and emerging threat to our democracy.”
“We also expect that these acts – using the tools of trade of the criminals at large in our communities from The Bahamas to Suriname, Saint Lucia to Trinidad and Tobago – that they be deemed to be acts of terrorism and allow us to view them, not only the executive, but by our judiciary and allow us to fashion the appropriate legislation."
HOSTED BY BARBADOS IN GEORGETOWN, GUYANA 22 NOVEMBER 2024
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