First published in The Tribune on Friday, April 11, 2008 under the byline, Young Man’s View.

Bedlam has once again been wreaked upon two educational institutions as unruly, poorly socialized students rioted and terrorized their classmates and teachers at the Donald W Davis and Government High School compounds.
 
These days, schoolchildren are contributing to a wave of criminality and brutality that has utterly disrupted our once quiet and tranquil existence.

Last week, DW Davis students engaged in a frightful brawl which left teachers scrambling for cover and calling upon the Ministry of Education (MOE) to reinstate police officers in an area that’s alleged to be a gangland.
 
Reportedly, the students resorted to using objects—wood, metal poles and blocks—that were left behind by seemingly callous contractors.
 
During the clash, it was stated that certain gang affiliated students jumped the school’s walls and returned with the backing of outsiders. A day later, the scene was chaotic at GHS as students there also engaged in an all-out mêlée.

Frankly, it is baffling how the contractors and school administrators could have left objects—weapons—casually lying around the school’s campus! Further, the MOE should make a concerted effort to raise the parameter walls of certain public school (eg, SC McPherson).

In secondary schools—and some primary schools—on-campus gangs are problematic, as students become fiercely territorial and dabble in drugs. Gangs, which are groups of allied and aberrant individuals, are infamous for their involvement in criminal activity.
 
These groupings of errant individuals may loosely hang out together or form a strict organization, with a designated leader, ruling council, a name, identifiers and, with the most structured gangs, bank accounts.

In addressing the issue of gang violence, I spoke with Corporal 2552 Davey Pratt, a gang expert, posted with the Police Force’s Community Relations Unit.

According to him, there are about 46 known gangs in this country, with a combined membership of about 10 thousand foot soldiers. He said that although there may be a few populous gangs, Raiders is the largest with a total of about 250 die-hard members.
 
He said that gangs are usually recognizable by hand signals, colors, caps and, in the case of many local gangs, sports paraphernalia (eg, football and basketball jerseys).

During the 1960s, neighborhood groups such as the Farmyard Boys or the Kemp Road Boys had squabbles but rarely engaged in serious criminal acts.
 
By the 1980s, it is said that the era of political sleaze and drug dealing led to the formation of more violent, felonious gangs such as the Syndicate and the Rebellion, with the latter being the former gang of reformed gangster and motivational speaker Carlos Reid. During the last 15 years, the number of youth gangs has grown.

Gangs are an omnipresent part of inner-city life, where they petrify the community with mafia-style violence, which is sometimes well planned but may result in the deaths of innocent bystanders.
 
Local gangs, I’m told, are extremely sadistic, instigate deadly rivalries and usually carryout unlawful acts in specific zones that they claim as turf. Corporal Pratt told me that some gangsters cannot venture out of there immediate area into any part of Nassau, because they would be killed.
 
With approximately 10,000 Bahamians engaging in anti-social behaviour, Corporal Pratt said that their thrust to become gangsters is brought on by “a search for identity, a lack of education, a want for protection when they travel to other areas of New Providence, poverty and absentee and neglectful parents.”
 
He said that the students in gangs are usually disruptive nuisances on school campuses, who usually have dismal grade point averages. According to the policeman, poverty-stricken teenagers have no money to purchase what they desire, so they turn to working for a gang leader who will pay them a stipend or buy material possessions for them.
 
He also said that single parent homes or homes with uneducated, young parents who lack parental skills and “don’t have much of anything to teach their kids” are those that usually produce gang bangers.
 
Many hardened criminals and diehard gangsters are known to recruit and exploit school age children.
 
Some older thugs become involved in gangs for protection while serving prison sentences.
 
Studies on gang violence reveal that new inductees must be beaten by a certain number of other members for at least 10 minutes, and the wannabe gangster cannot resort to any defensive postures during the thumping.
 
Survival of such a cruel affair would prove that an aspirant member is tough and lead to him being accepted.
Female gang members, who usually belong to spin-offs of male gangs, are initiated in the same way as males and may also be told to have unprotected sex with every male in the gang.

“The initiation is getting beaten to see if you could withstand the hurricane coming to ya! It is to show the leader that they are ready to rumble.

“To initiate them, a gang leader may send a wannabe to deal with someone ya know, to show the leader his capabilities. And the leader is always there,” noted Corporal Pratt.

In the 21st century, gangs have evolved into multidimensional consortiums that traffic drugs, deal in firearms/ammunition, threaten police officers, carryout drive-by shootings and contract killings, and engage in extortion, human smuggling, phone tampering, marriage fraud and identity theft.
 
According to Pratt, the Raiders gang is ubiquitous throughout New Providence, with segments located in Fox Hill, Kemp Road, Bain Town, Carmichael Road, Pinewood, etc. Although there are a few major groups, he noted that there are numerous splinter gangs throughout the island that are either affiliated with a more established crew or are only associated with schools or a small grouping of hoodlums peddling dope on a street corner.
 
Based upon information gleaned from Corporal Pratt and a focus group of students, I can identify certain New Providence based gangs and their neighborhoods.
 
The active gangs and splinter groups terrorizing this island are: the Raiders, Nike Boys (Yellow Elder, CC Sweeting), Corner Boys, 187, the Irish, Gun Hawks, Sharks (Key West Street/Ida Street/CH Reeves), Gun Doggs (Kemp Road), Monster Doggs (Carlton Francis), Pond Boys (Bain Town), War Kings, MOB (Bamboo Town/Sunset Park), Deathrow (Carmichael), Gun A** (Sunshine Park), Dirty South (South Beach/St Vincent Road), Cash Money Boys, Cowboys, 242, 362 (Bacardi Road), Wet Money Gangsters (Winton), Swamper Dogs (Pinewood), Raider Boy Killers, Original Boy Gangsters, Hoyas, etc.
 
There are also female gangs such as the Trip Out Daughters, Mad A** Daughters, Head Gone B******, Looney Tunes, Shebellion (part of Raiders), and so on.
 
Behind the bushes of Carmichael and Cowpen roads are Haitian gangs such as the Bush Boys and an offshoot of one of the world’s most dangerous and notorious black gangs—ZoPound. These gangs are all prevalent in our schools.
 
ZoPound is a gang started in the ghettos of Miami, by destitute Haitian immigrants or persons of Haitian descent.
 
Since its launch, ZoPound has been exported to the Bahamas via the large influx of illegal Haitian immigrants and the deportation of Haitian-Bahamians to the Bahamas after they have served sentences in US prisons. Reportedly, ZoPound is also comprised of ex-militants and ex-cops and generates hundreds of millions per annum from the sale of drugs, gambling and prostitution.
 
ZoPound’s initiation rituals are slightly different from many Bahamian gangs, because to qualify for membership, you must have Haitian parentage.  
 
When speaking about Zo Pound, Corporal Pratt said:

“The ZoPound or Zo Boys is a Haitian gang, also found in schools, that is more organized than any gang in the Bahamas. This gang was former in the US, in the Miami area, and go here after the guys that are part of it served jail time and were deported to their birth place. Here, they started a network and recruited Haitian-Bahamians.”

“About 75 per cent of all persons charged with murder in the Bahamas have a Haitian last name such as Joseph or Jordine. When many of these gangsters commit a crime, they hide in the Haitian village where they can’t be detected,” Pratt opined.

The policeman said that ZoPound is a worldwide gang involved in “drug racketeering.” He claimed that gangs, particularly ZoPound, are known to “hire fellas to stand on various street corners and serve as sentries to protect the dope sellers.”
 
He claimed that several of these drug peddling lookouts work shifts like a regular job and earn $1,000-$1,500 per week.
 
In various schools, particularly in bathrooms or desks, gangland graffiti is a common sight. In a BIS report in 2005, Seanalee Lewis, then head of the Behavioural Modification Programme at Woodcock Primary and a veteran social worker with the Ministry of Social Services and Community Development, asserted that primary school students are using marijuana, forming gangs and marking out turf. What a travesty!

According to Officer Pratt:

“Gangs play a major role in school violence. They act out what they do in their communities. Most likely, any school chaos is planned for weeks because it just doesn’t spring up! The DW Davis incident shows that the outsiders may have met with the kids and plotted what they would do.”

It has also been alleged that cruise ships and yachts are transporting many of the guns found in the possession of local gangs, particularly since many yachts traveling to upscale areas such as Lyford are hardly inspected.

In order to curb the penchant of Haitian-Bahamians to join gangs, Corporal Pratt recommends that the government moves to regularize those qualifying, yet stateless persons who are born to Haitian parents.
 
To reduce gang/school violence the private and public sectors must propose ways to revamp our country’s educational system, launch a gang intervention program, seek to reduce unemployment, establish parenting programmes and offer counseling to rebellious youngsters.
 
Moreover, the MOE must also implement programmes to encourage more males to enter the educational arena and ensure that security officers undergo specialized training procedures!

E-Mail Adrian.