Survey looks at kids? reaction to crime
Today’s newscast, like many Monday editions, is heavy on weekend crime. But the phenomenon of what appears to be an increasingly violent society is felt in many ways. This morning News 5’s Patrick Jones got a preview of a new study that seeks to get behind the grim headlines.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
Every time there is a murder, a robbery, assault or other form of violence, the resulting impact is often taken hard by the victims. But no one seems to be taking stock of what impact such incidents have on children. That is until now. The survey which was launched today, is seeking to find out just one thing: how crime and violence affects our youngest citizens. Dr. Michael Rosberg is the consultant contracted to carry out the national exercise.
Dr. Michael Rosberg, Consultant
?So this is a study, which is going to be meeting children from the ages of three right up to the ages of seventeen to understand what their lives are like and what crime and violence is doing to them, how it touches them, the way that it affects them, does it affect their school work? How does it affect their lives? Are there pressures on them that push them into crime and violence??
The project will be carried out by a team of twelve youths who will undergo a one week intensive training course on how to conduct the survey before going out into the field. Rosberg says the models for the exercise were developed in Guyana but adapted to suit local needs.
Dr. Michael Rosberg
?We?ll be going into the schools to speak to the in school youths in the elementary schools and also the high schools , we?ll be playing games with the younger children so that we will not be intrusive. But we have set it up in ways that we can count the different kinds of behaviours and have ways of relating that to the environment of crime and violence. We will be doing surveys with the high school students as well. In addition to that there will be focus group, that is to say discussions that are going to be held with unattached youths, those who are not in school any more to lean about their lives and to learn about their exposure to crime and violence.?
The Community Rehabilitation department of the Ministry of Human Development is taking the lead role in conducting the survey. Director Fermin Olivera says the information will be helpful in a number of ways.
Fermin Olivera, Director, Community Rehabilitation Department
?Well the plan is that we will share this information with the larger community, and also among the people that are overseeing this project. It?s already a multi-sectoral advisory committee. And hopefully we will be able to use this information to influence any policy that needs to be changed and plan our interventions.?
Dr. Michael Rosberg
?It will all be information based, it will be nationally done. We will be speaking to eighteen hundred in school youths. We will be speaking to one hundred and twenty out of schools youths and a hundred and twenty adults. So that we will be bale to speak with some statistical reliability that what we are saying these people have told us is really does reflect the reality out there.?
Patrick Jones, for News Five.
Rosberg says all steps are being taken to protect the privacy of people who take part in the study. Each of the twelve youth data collectors are made to take an oath of confidentiality in order to keep the information they gather safe. In addition, Rosberg says that interviewers will not collect the names of the children they interview and the data collected will not be used for anything other than the survey. Olivera says a preliminary report on the impact of crime and violence on children should be ready by the end of November.
