By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

CHARGING parents for harbouring children who are gang members will cause suffering for many good parents, Free National Movement leader Michael Pintard warned yesterday, adding that most parents do not know the double life their children may lead.

His comment came before he and other parliamentarians supported the passage of the Anti-Gang Bill 2024.

In response to his concern, National Security Minister Wayne Munroe said parents must be held accountable when they see alarming behaviour from their children and say nothing to the police. He said some parents see their sons bringing guns home, getting new cars without a job, or having unusual tattoos and haircuts, but don’t tell authorities.

The Anti-Gang Bill says anyone harbouring a gang member could be jailed for up to 20 years. If the gang member or gang leader is a child, their parent would be convicted for harbouring them.

Mr Pintard said while many parents can say their child is “no-manners” or they disapprove of their friends, they “cannot tell you if their child is involved with a gang”.

Mr Pintard said it is a “disservice” for parents to be targeted and that an unintended consequence will be many innocent, hardworking parents getting charged when they have set a positive example for their children.

He said when he was a student, he had a disobedient phase despite his mother displaying the perfect example of a parent and a citizen.

“Would it have been fair to incarcerate my mother?” he asked, “because of things I’m doing when she is busy working two jobs to feed her family? This is not to excuse those parents who are guilty of a dereliction of duty.”

Mr Munroe responded that the Penal Code defines harbouring as someone who knows or has reason to believe that a person has committed or has been convicted of a crime and helps that person avoid arrest.

“If your child is in a gang, look at his head,” Mr Munroe said. “If he has a very weird haircut and you see a bunch of young fellas with the same weird haircut, he might be in a gang. Talk to the Urban Renewal officers.

“If you see him turning up with stuff he has no way of legitimately having, talk to the police. If you see something, say something because if you don’t say something, you yourself may be guilty of an offence. It is as simple as that. The Bahamian public is demanding that parents retake some responsibility for the actions of their children.”

Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis, during his contribution to the gang bill, also evoked images of non-gang members being held accountable under the legislation.

He said: “I know there are those who, when they see the mother or grandmother or girlfriend in handcuffs, may feel a sense of sympathy for their situation, knowing they were not in the gangs themselves, but it is an unfortunate situation. We are at the point where we cannot allow others to continue to support their loved ones in the commission of crimes without being held accountable.”

Mr Pintard called for empirical studies to determine what percentage of violent crimes are gang-related.