And with three teenage boys shot dead in less than a month, we asked the youth minister, Kevin Bernard, his thoughts about it. Today, he explained that the situation is grim and the ministry is trying to work with at risk youths.
Hon Kevin Bernard, Minister of Youth
"I know that through the behavior and conflict modification service that we're offering, Mr Abdul Nunez who is leading that for us, working closely with the police, working closely with this new group, I think it's the LUA they call themselves, we must at the same time look at our atmosphere and this is why some of these initiatives that we're looking for in terms of on the jobs skills training and all these other programs I dare to ask some of these young people, like I said, I mean I'll offer my condolences to all these families who have lost their young children, whether to gun violence, whether because they have gone out there and did something wrong and in the case of Laddie who died on the hands of the police because of another issue, I mean, we're a young nation and we should be able to look at opportunities for our young people. There should be avenues that these young people can come and get support. Through the DYS, we're here to offer that support, we're here to ensure that we engage our young people and this is one of the reasons that I originally said the youth needs assessment we are doing on the ground. One of the principle concern hat the young people have reported to us is that they need counselling. So they're here asking for guidance and we're here ensuring that we can offer some of that level of support for them."
