Time to focus on men

Why, why, we ask? Someone slit Adams throat, as also perpetrated on Jamilia DeReveneaux, 27, at Movie Towne, last Sunday. We still lament the late Shannon Banfield, 20, Rachael Ramkissoon, 16, and Nadia Simms, 25.

Our call is therefore for a focus on the men – especially the young men of our society, even if we have to chance going in their bedrooms to get the answers.

The easiest answer seems to surround the inadequacy of certain young males exploding in a jealous rage against young females who jilted them, or were simply working hard at their own goals out of the league of their assailants.

If we trace the phenomenon back to the school system, do some of the answers lie in the extent to which female students are outclassing their male counterparts in every field.

The situation is so perplexing that the commissioner of police, Stephen Williams, called on divine intervention to curb crime.

But the scripture itself posits that faith without works is dead and perhaps what the Commissioner needs is divine inspiration to push the works that he must do to ease the tension that we now face with these horrific killings of women in our country.

After the heated debate on whether or not Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley was too blunt in warning women about intimate partner violence, we ask what measures are we – the people, the government, the NGOs, the women’s groups, the opposition, the media – prepared to do. We cannot surrender to any helplessness of wondering who’ll be next but must mobilise all sectors to deal with the issue. Also sabre rattling and blaming will not help.

One of the more immediate issue – given what we have been seeing – is how do we identify and stem toxic relationships in the short term and lift the state of our young men in the shortest possible time? It is said men who kill their partners do so out of jealousy, control and possessiveness. University of Manchester criminologists, Professors Rebecca and Russell Dobash, did a 10-year study of femicide resulting in research which gave lie to the oft-claimed defence of “crime of passion”, but instead found, “Intimate partner murders were some of the most intentional killers we saw”. The study said such killers often had problematic childhoods and adulthoods, alcohol problems and were unemployed.

Yet many killers had none of these problems but still had dangerous proprietary orientations towards their partner.

TT’s own Prof Selwyn Ryan’s 2013 report, “No time to quit” explores young male minds.

Risk-factors for criminality include broken homes, failure at school, drug-peddling, gangs and possibly even dance-hall music, plus a marked change in TT’s societal values since 1962. His remedies included sport, national service, and parent and community involvement in schooling.

He wanted vibrant community- driven male groups, and the hosting of a series of major public debates on young males and crime.

So some work has been done from which we can draw. We have some warning signs which we could begin