Fatherless homes: An incubator
Commissioner of Police major General Antony Anderson is reported to have shrugged off the findings from a survey commissioned by a local media house in which the majority of respondents indicated that they lacked confidence in his leadership of the police.
He stated that, “…[S]o far, Jamaica has recorded 1,018 murders since the start of the year. In 2005 there were 1,674 murders, in 2017 the island recorded 1,647 murders”. The commissioner added, “Some 518 weapons were seized by the police as at the end of August.”
Last year January I saw a report which read, in part, “With recorded killings of 1,301 in 2020 a new report on Latin America and the Caribbean has revealed that Jamaica now has the region’s highest homicide rate at 46.5 per 100,000 people.”
Major Anderson’s claims of reduced murders, notwithstanding, the situation is still cause for concern. But why are we in this sorry situation?
Five years ago a video, filmed locally, went viral. It depicted a half-naked mother delivering a brutal public beating, using a cutlass, to her equally scantily clad daughter. Before completing my article ‘Beating the pain away’, I interviewed some mothers in the same socio-economic group as the beater, asking for their opinion on the video. They all supported the mother, adding that they knew of no other way to get children to “behave”. This, I think, is where our problem begins.
The complex issue of violent behaviour among children is talked about when it takes place in public spaces, like schools, but does not seem to be understood by parents and other adults. There was a time when punishment by a teacher would ensure a second dose when the child gets home. Today, any intervention by the teacher could guarantee that the teacher would get similar treatment from the parent. So teachers are now distancing themselves from such children.
But violent behaviour in a child — the precursor to adult violence — at any age needs to be taken seriously.
Violent behaviour in children and adults usually manifests itself in explosive temper tantrums, physical aggression, fighting, threats or attempts to hurt others, use of weapons, cruelty towards animals, fire setting, and vandalism.
It has now been established that a complex interaction or combination of factors lead to an increased risk of violence. These include previous aggressive or violent behaviour, being the victim of physical or sexual abuse, exposure to violence in the home or community, being the victim of bullying, genetic factors, drug and alcohol abuse, and stressful family socio-economic factors like poverty.
A few years ago I was doing some work for the Ministry of National Security, I asked for the files of 20 juveniles — randomly selected — who were placed on probation. A study of these cases — 10 boys and 10 girls — revealed, among other things, the following:
1) None attended church 2) None benefited from the presence of a father
3) All were born and raised in crowded tenement yards or in garrison areas
As a former Sunday school teacher I mention their non-attendance not because of opportunities for going to heaven but because the lessons generally taught at Sunday school involve love, tolerance, forgiveness, and the peaceful resolution of conflicts — features completely absent in the case histories of these youngsters.
It is many years now, but I still remember the shock registered around the world when Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik slaughtered 77 people. The first question that entered my mind was, “Did he grow up with a father?” My research revealed that he was fatherless.
Growing up without a father figure has a profound effect on boys that last into manhood. Democrat Senator Daniel Monyhan said, prophetically, in 1965, “...[T]here is one unmistakable lesson in American history: A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority…that community asks for and gets chaos.” Forensic psychologist Shawn Johnson said, “The research is absolutely clear…the one human being most capable of curbing the anti-social aggression of a boy is his biological father.”
On CNN’S list of the ‘27 deadliest mass shootings in US history’, seven of those shootings were committed by young, under-30 males since 2005. Of the seven, only one — Virginia Tech shooter Seung-hui Cho, who had been mentally unstable since childhood — was raised