By RIEL MAJOR

IN the wake of a ninth-grade student being fatally stabbed, the National Crime Council is drawing up plans for ways to help end gang violence.

According to psychiatrist Dr David Allen, the streets are not safe for children to go to and from school.

Dr Allen said: “This is no minor thing, we can’t have a country where children can’t walk home safely. Kids should be allowed to go to school safely and walk home safely. We need something on the streets now and it seems like the minister recognises that too.

“Kids are in gangs whether they want to be or not... and when traveling home there are certain streets they’re allowed to walk on and other streets they can’t. This issue indicates that the kids on the streets are subjected to gang involvement depending on where they walk. We have to do something sooner or later.

“Minister Dames told me to get some proposals together because he’s ready to act.”

Carlos Reid, reformed gang leader, said the country has an organised gang problem.

Mr Reid said: “Now we have in this country where we have moved from youth gangs to organised gangs and here is the problem, once money is involved, you’re in trouble. These brothers are now being funded by the drug trade and not just the drug trade but the gun trade. When money is involved it becomes more survival than people just looking for something to do.”

The Ministry of National Security is working on programmes to combat gangs, he said.

Mr Reid added: “Violence has to be treated like a disease and we must deal with it in three aspects prevention, intervention and quarantine.”

Ninth-grade student Perry Rolle Jr was fatally stabbed last month following an incident outside a school with another teenage boy.

A teenager has since been charged in connection with the incident.