Acting Attorney General and Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams has tasked law enforcement officials with using their judgment and expertise to keep problematic youngsters out of the criminal court system.
While speaking Friday during the Barbados Police Service Award Ceremony, which took place at Harmony Hall, St. Michael’s Hugh Springer Auditorium, Solidarity House, he said that if young defendants show remorse for whatever actions they may have taken, officers should use their discretion to help keep them out of the courts.
“Under the child justice legislation, one of the principal aims is diversion. We are trying to keep people out of the system. Once you are charged, there are certain avenues for diversion, where we can, instead of going down a strict criminal process, we try to give you every opportunity based on accepting what you did, and being penitent, we give every opportunity to divert you out of the system. The aim is the less people we have with a criminal record, [will equal] less criminals that we have.”
He added: “Let us divert people even before they get into the system. Sometimes the police officers can exercise discretion; sometimes you all can have a word; sometimes the strict, forceful, enforcement of the law may not actually yield the result that you want. See yourself as your name implies, as a service organisation.”
He stressed that: “At the end of the day you are in the service of upholding and maintaining the laws of Barbados. How you do that commissioner is entirely up to you. How the men and women under your charge do that is entirely up to them. A person’s outcome may depend on who they but when they run afoul of the law. A person’s future may depend on who they interact with in the station.”
