Dillon: Youths mindset must change

“You have to change the mindset of the boys and the reason why the boys are there. They come from home. That is where they have to start from __ with their parents.” Speaking to Sunday Newsday yesterday after the closing ceremony of Exercise Tradewinds 2017 at the Teteron Barracks, Chaguaramas, Dillon said the police as well as the St Michael’s authorities were looking into the matter.

“One thing for sure that they must do is to find out what were the causes and how the young men were able to escape from the area they were confined to and then put measures in place to prevent a reoccurrence.” Eleven teenagers escaped from the St Michael’s Home for Boys in Diego Martin last Tuesday and two were found walking along Cantaro Extension Road, Santa Cruz last Thursday.

A police source said they were still investigating the matter but had no new information on the other nine boys.

However, he noted that St Michael’s was not secure and boys had run away before. “If a fella decide he leaving, he leaving.

“Persons are accustomed escaping from there. It is quite common, just not in this quantum.” He also said he heard reports that, since the advent of the Children’s Authority, a large number of boys were becoming more disrespectful because “they know the staff can’t do them anything” in terms of reprimanding them.

In his remarks, Dillon echoed Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley who cried shame on the parents of the youths who robbed Fr Clyde Harvey at St Martin de Porres RC Church in Gonzales last Monday.

“These miscreants have parents and I hope that somewhere in this country there are a few parents who are hanging their heads in shame over what more they might have done,” Rowley had said in an official statement on the crime.