There continues to be considerable angst and heated discussion of the causes and responses to violent crime in a modern Bahamas besieged by high levels of violence and anti-social behavior.
While much of this column focuses on violent crime, at the root we are dealing not with crime per se, but with social decay and various crises of culture.
Much of the crime commentary is trite with endless cliches and vague notions of crime abatement. Philosophically, there are stubborn debates as to whether there are mostly individual or social causes for crime. Of course, the answer is a mixed one depending on a complex of factors and the context.
Some are wedded to a boot camp mentality, while others believe that hectoring and preaching loudly is a serious crime prevention strategy. The Christian Council has dropped the ball on crime. But mostly for reasons other than a lack of prayer and sublimation.
Amidst the regurgitation of what has not and what will not work, there are important efforts such as Urban Renewal (UR). UR has done some good things. Still, as constituted, it is less a strategy and more of a hope on a wing and a prayer.
UR lacks coherence and a clear philosophical and sociological underpinning about crime and its causes. It is more a series of band-aids, whereas more fundamental and structural efforts are required.
Even as governments have rightly allocated more resources to the courts, police and related measures, still underfunded are broader-scale social interventions, which have been shown to reduce crime in the medium and longer terms.
The most successful social intervention programs involve intense efforts to redirect, mitigate or change the habits and mindsets of those who may be disposed to criminal conduct because of various circumstances.
Many of those who are inalterably criminally-minded will not be deterred except by good policing and/or incarceration. But there are many others whose lives have been transformed by initiatives not yet seriously tried in The Bahamas.

New ideas
During the last general election, then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham spoke often of new ideas his government intended to implement in terms of social intervention.
These included: The Bahamas Youth Corps, the Summer School for Boys, a revamped high school community service-learning program, a program based on the successful Afro Reggae youth initiative in Brazil, the Youth Development Centre, among others.
Collectively, such initiatives are considerably more comprehensive and far-reaching than the current iteration of UR. What these programs have in common is helping to directly address the habits and behavior of those who commit the overwhelming majority of crime: young men.
Social and cultural change, for good or ill, concern habits and patterns of behavior which flow from value-sets. Gang members and members of the Boy Scouts both have sets of values, rites of passage, rituals, group leaders and norms, shared objectives and an esprit de corps.
So what makes for the differences between a potential boy scout and the member of a criminal gang? Clearly, a number of things, a number of which will be explored in successive columns.
For now: We are creatures of habit, and at the heart of our culture of violent crime are various crises of culture, fueling, reinforcing and arming mostly young men in a conveyor belt of successive cohorts ready to take up the drug trade, gang membership and weapons for many years to come.
Cultural habits and practices showcase the lived values of a given society. The mouthing of values is not the same as adhering to them. While we adhere to the concept of monogamy in law and in Christian rituals, sociologically, we are a de facto polygamous society.
While clerics will judge the morality of such a discrepancy between words and practices, the sociologist is more interested in understanding the social realities and habits involved in such a gap, or chasm, depending on the society.
There are positive and negative social mores and norms, the study and analyses of which are critical in areas ranging from public health to marketing products to addressing criminal behavior.

Social habits
To better understand the sociology as well as the social psychology of crime in the modern Bahamas is to appreciate our social habits and cultural patterns. Also, there are certain relatively recent crises of culture helping to fuel violent crime.
These crises include the emergence of the drug and gangland culture of the 1970s and 1980s, and the inception of social promotion in the government-operated school system in the 70s. More on both in subsequent columns.
Human habits are a complex matter, rooted as they are in the collaboration of biology and moral imagination. Twelve-Step programs speak to this collaboration and what it takes to arrest addictions and reform habits. Virtues and vices are essentially habits.
We are creatures of habit.
During the recent CARIFTA Games, a number of complimentary ticketholders were placed in seats for which others had paid. An overabundance of complimentary tickets was given out. Some ushers faced the dilemma of reseating those occupying reserved seats.
Quite a number of those asked to move, refused to do so. They were belligerent and unyielding. Even when asked to move by a police officer, they refused. Imagine the attitude if such individuals were occupying a seat for which they had paid good money.
In our behavior in public spaces and public gatherings, we often exhibit a culture of entitlement and slackness sometimes accompanied by rudeness and disrespect for authority.
One cannot imagine what happened at the new national stadium that day occurring in a country such as Japan or even in The Bahamas when the Q.E. II Sports Centre first opened.
Consider the foul mouths and vulgar cursing by many school kids in public with easy references to the genitalia of another's mother, and language many adults would never utter. Whereof were such habits formed?

Shameless
Consider also the shameless ease with which some Bahamians invade the private spaces of others, take advantage of courtesies not meant for them or intrude at private events to which they have not been invited.
For decades many straw vendors refused to pay certain fees, contributing to the Straw Market becoming run down and derelict, while gleefully selling counterfeit goods, even while clinging to a Bible. Why such poor public habits?
And yet, why do we have the habit of one of the highest voter turnouts during a general election? More so, Bahamians are generally not cigarette smokers. Why do most Bahamians seem to observe the signs for handicapped parking? Why are we eager to help others by faithfully buying cook-out and raffle tickets?
Before seatbelt laws were passed at home, Bahamians generally buckled up when overseas. Once the laws were finally enforced, there was an extraordinary increase of the number of motorists buckling up; many of the very same people reticent to wear seatbelts prior to enforcement. Why the quick change of habit?
In addressing social decay and a certain culture of criminality, it is necessary that we better understand the culture of slackness and entitlement that has been encouraged by many leaders over the past several decades.
It is a form of cultural decay that has reinforced incivility, a breakdown of the most basic values of social life and mutual respect, and a slew of bad habits contributing to criminal enterprise itself or an acceptance of such conduct.
Even as we seek to reverse or mitigate the poor habits and patterns of behavior among those who may commit violent crime, we look to ourselves, our cultural patterns and our habits as both explanation and as a means of addressing our social decline.

o frontporchguardian@gmail.com, www.bahamapundit.com.

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