By PAVEL BAILEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

pbailey@tribunemedia.net

EDUCATION Minister Glenys Hanna Martin said she won’t join the bandwagon for reinstating capital punishment because the return of the penalty is unrealistic.

She said focus should be on taking young people off the streets and teaching them a better way to live.

She spoke after former Cabinet minister Leslie Miller said legislators “lack the guts” to bring back the death penalty.

She said calling for the death penalty is a “go-to” move when violent crime increases. But, she said, “the reality is that jurisprudence is making it more and more unlikely that you are going to see executions any time soon. I have to be realistic about it. I could join the bandwagon, make everybody feel happy, but I’m not that type.”

“We are concerned and it’s all hands on deck. We could point fingers, I’m good at that too, but I think that is at such levels now that we have to just determine that we have to come together.

The minister of education emphasised the need to enter communities most affected by crime and for rehabilitative school programmes to steer youth in the right direction.

Education Director Dominique Russell said her ministry is working to ensure that public schools nationwide provide a safe environment for students. She said the ministry had partnered with several private stakeholders to provide anger management and mentoring programmes to at-risk students.

“We are seeking to ensure that all of our children have access to co-curricular and extracurricular activities because of the advantage that they provide,” she said. “And so we have invited a number of our partners to continue to partner with us to provide these mentoring services and some instances anger management sessions or increased anger management sessions, increased counselling, more restorative practices are instituting.”

The Ministry of Education launches its Student Development Co-Curricular Activities today.