Vernon Daley

The 'indiscretions' of some students have recently found their way on to the Internet. Pictures and video clips of these young people engaged in explicit sexual activity have rightly caused a stir in the society.

This has led to great lamentation about the breakdown of values among the youth. Maybe we have seen a crumbling of values, but I wonder whether the case isn't being overstated.

I have viewed some of the material being circulated on the internet and the truth is that what those young people are doing has been done by young people here for a long time. There have always been the stories of sordid, youthful escapades. The only difference now is that these acts have been caught on camera and made available to the whole world through the worldwide web.

We are not the only country grappling with this issue, either. Some of our neighbours are similarly ailed. Over the weekend, there was a report out of Trinidad and Tobago about plans by the government to ban camera phones in schools because pornographic images were taken by students and put on the Internet.

I hope we, in Jamaica, don't go down this route. Teachers have enough to worry about educating students without having to turn around and search through their bags and pockets to find out whether they are carrying camera phones.

At any rate, there seems to be a loophole in the proposed Trinidad policy because it doesn't contemplate banning regular cameras or digital cameras. Both of these are just as capable of recording pornographic images to put on the Internet as camera phones.

The technology is not the problem here. In the early days of the Internet there was great concern about the ease with which pornography could be accessed. That remains a real issue, but we have also seen, in time, that the Internet can do many wonderful things too.

When we have these discussions, the broad brush comes out and everybody is painted over. So, we take one or two outrageous incidents and talk about a general decline in moral standards among young people. I don't see any basis, whatsoever, for that approach. Most young people in school are not engaged in these debaucherous, risky activities.

My feeling is that the recent Internet incidents should tell us that we need to be concerned but we shouldn't despair.

Let's put the focus on building an alliance among community youth organisations, service clubs, church groups, the schools, the media and most importantly parents in supporting young people and showing them a real path to self-respect. If there is a breakdown in values among young people, it's because the society hasn't offered them a healthy alternative. We can't blame the youth.

Is the CCJ dead?

Is the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) experiment dead in the water? Last week St Vincent and the Grenadines Opposition Leader Arnhim Eustace withdrew his party's support for appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ. The Opposition in Trinidad is also opposed to the court while the Jamaica Labour Party Government in Jamaica has never warmed to it. Only Barbados and Guyana have made the plunge in having the court replace the UK-based Privy Council.

As far as I know, we in Jamaica have to be repaying a multimillion dollar loan to the Caribbean Development Bank which was used to set up the court. Why are we paying for something we are not using? We need to have the CCJ issue resolved and I'm hoping we'll hear a major statement from Prime Minister Bruce Golding about the matter in the upcoming Budget debate.