JAMAICA has been losing some of its ablest young men in the most productive phase of their life.

An average of 667 men between the ages of 25 and 39 are murdered annually, leaving children fatherless, families broken and an economy that needs their input, wanting.

"Where we are going to end up is with a serious case of pauper(isation) of people if we don't have policies of inclusion and address structural violence, and allow people to see that unless there are alternatives, we are going to be losing some critical people," explains social anthropologist, Dr Herbert Gayle, noting that the country was already suffering from a lack of leadership.

Scale down policies

To develop fuller policies that would address the structural problems in poorer communities, Gayle says, the Government should consider scaling down some of the ambitious policies it now has on the books, including free health care.

"The governments have been promising all these things in the name of politics, but these policies don't make sense, because the policies they must look at are policies that address the 20 per cent squalor in the country," he argues.

Training programmes, such as HEART, need to be reviewed so as to make them more 'male-friendly', he opines. Many programmes offered by that institution, he believes, do not cater to the circumstances many young men in need of training face today.

Gayle says many males, when compared to females, do not have the support system necessary to care for children while attending school as females do; nor can many afford the expensive tools needed to support their course of study.

Gayle suggests that Government expand programmes like Children First and HEART, and introduce programmes for young men, including social workers, who can focus on and understand their needs and work with them. The alternative, Gayle argues, is to let them shoot each other and at us occasionally.

gareth.manning@gleanerjm.com