THE failure of the country’s institutions is contributing significantly to the prevalence of youth delinquency and criminal activity among the nation’s young people.

That’s the view of senior lecturer, Dr. Ronald Marshall, at the Department of Behavioural Science, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus.

Lamenting the recent sodomy and murder of six-year-old Sean Luke, allegedly by two teenagers, Marshall said the gruesome crime leaves many questions to be answered.

“We have to understand the tremendous importance of social and sociological factors that are attendant on people in varying circumstances,” Marshall declared, “and we must ask ourselves, what series of factors or constellation of factors conspired to make some people offenders and consequently, what makes others the victims.

“We, the society, must first understand family upbringing, the impact of role models, discipline, parental skills, monitoring, in getting the child out of difficult circumstances during their life course leading to teenage years.

“Unfortunately, communication is very poor with children.

“Too many of our children are meant to be seen, but not heard.

“What creates these teenaged criminals?

“Were they raised or victims of circumstances in early childhood and is it now that criminal intent is being manifested in later life.

“Why was Sean Luke killed?

“Was it fear of being detected or was it that they were making a statement to the national community that they need help?

“How many youth offenders are at large?

“What records do we have of them from home, school and the community?

“If we have problem children in the society, children capable of heinous crimes, how come nobody was able to identify them?

“Who are the adult companions of these youth offenders?

“How many parents are taking note of the adults their children are keeping friends with?

“What is the genesis of that friendship, seeing it is two people who have different outlooks on life because of their different levels of maturity and experience, and who are at different stages of their personal and social development?

“What, therefore, is the commonality?

“What is holding the relationship?

“We need to be vigilant with our young people.

“This is the real world and we need to think practically.”

Marshall then added: “Institutions are failing badly and they are being assailed by exogenous and endogenous forces.

“For example, as a Caribbean society, we are still reeling from international economic pressures, cultural influences, and the social effect of these.

“The clearing house of all these negative experiences are played out in the family and the community, comprised of course by individuals, some of whom may not have the capacity to deal with them.

“Here is where we need professionals to come in to give form and perspective in identifying what the society is up against.

“Furthermore, all of these factors seem to be coming at us all at once -- school drop-outs, decaying values, poor parental control, crime, and the high cost of living and the consequential lack of self-esteem which seems to find itself replaced by a façade of increased material wealth as a panacea, a cure for all as one is expected to feel good with material things, while at the same time growing spiritually and socially poorer.

“The institutions are key because they can identify antisocial behaviour and prevent some of these terrible crimes by adequate monitoring in the school, home and community.”

Marshall also identified the American Pop culture as another negative of the social fabric, since images and messages are couched to hurt others.

“Just listen to the lyrics of the music that youths identify with today,” Marshall reasoned.

Another senior UWI academic, speaking on condition of anonymity, also criticised the influence of American culture on the development of TnT’s youth.

“The degeneration of the youth sub-culture is definitely not just internal, there are also external forces,” the lecturer at the Department of History declared.

“Whatever the US is like, we follow; and the core of the consequences of that close cultural penetration coming from the US for us to see through the television, travel and racial compartmentalisation.

“Young people pick up the worse side of that sub-culture -- the gun culture, the value systems of youth culture -- but I am not saying anything new here.

“But the American influences are not the only negative, part of it is homegrown but it would not have been so bad had we not been exposed to the negatives of American culture.”

The History academic also contends that there is no immediate solution to the problem of youth delinquency, and insisted that it is a worldwide phenomenon.

“In England a few years ago, two boys lured a three-year-old boy out of a mall and beat him to death on a railway track.

“Those boys were nine and 10 years old.

“No amount of parental discipline or school discipline can rid a society of deviant behaviour or sicknesses.”