Area Rep for Albert Joins Fight Against Crime

Tracy Panton

But drug war aside, there are several factors that must also be taken into consideration, including the lack of employment opportunities in the area. Panton says that the police, as well as her constituency office, will intervene and mediate between feuding gangs in an effort to mitigate crime.

Tracy Panton, Area Rep. Albert

“I believe that intervention and mediation are a very important part of the process and Mister Williams and his team have assured me that that will be very much part of the overall solution. It is a small area and that is why it is so concerning. That is why we are taking the time to visit each home because everybody knows everybody in this area. I will go as far as to say that everybody is family and so this kind of spike in the gun activity is very disconcerting. We need to understand why the spike. The intervention and mediation process have not happened as yet, but we understand from the police that that will be done very shortly and hopefully we will be able to get a better understanding of what we can do to ensure that we can mitigate some of the tension and certainly a lot of anger that you feel from our young men.”

Reporter

“What has been your specific message for your constituents you’ve spoke to? What specifically have you told them?”

Tracy Panton

“That we will continue to do all we can. We, in terms of my constituency office, we work a lot with the young people; we get them as young as five, we try to mentor the young people, we have a youth group that is very active to show alternative ways…there are things that we can do other than crime that is meaningful to our lives and we try to do that on our end. And I know there are lots of people working in this problem countrywide. So we continue to say we are here, certainly access to job opportunities is an issue for our young men and that is something that we take on very seriously. And we are trying to find ways in which we can work with contractors and other architects to see how we can get our young men involved, particularly in the construction industry, which a lot of them seem to have an interest.”