Dear Sir,

I along with many of our community are heartbroken to see the effects of violence within it, with so many people having lost their lives so recently — mostly young people.

The loss of life among primarily the young Black male population is nothing short of a public health crisis and needs to be tackled as such. Our last public health emergency — Covid — had many millions of dollars poured into control, and when I consider the number of young lives lost to violence and road trauma, we should be pouring money into aiming to control both of these killers.

I purport that the root cause of many of these deaths is the same in both cases — a lack of perceived value of life. A willingness to put your own lives, and other lives at risk, because you do not see the value of them.

In Glasgow, when gang violence was approached as a public health crisis in the mid-2000s, there was a significant reduction in violent crime over the following months and years. Bermuda may be another world, but we need to look at what has worked in other jurisdictions. There is a need for extensive funding to follow some of these proven pathways of violence reduction, which will require political will.

The Scottish Violence Reduction Unit started off with the approach of violence being a preventable disease. It created a multifaceted approach between the police, social services, education, housing and the community. The gangs were mapped out by the police and offered alternatives, including employment, addiction support and housing. Paid work was offered to those at high risk of being involved in violence. There was an intensive mentoring programme as part of that employment. There was huge input into school education programmes. There were teams in emergency departments to try to engage people at their most reachable moments.

With extensive research into the causes of the violence and tackling it from many directions, and with adequate funding to do so, the number of homicides in Scotland fell over about 15 years by 56 per cent and violent crimes by 55 per cent.

The other facet which is little spoken about is that of cash transfers, where studies have shown time and again that providing households with a guaranteed cash income reduces violent crime, which is hardly a surprise. We need to strive to reduce economic inequality, which in turn reduces desperation and the sense of having nothing to lose anyway. If this means direct funding of high-risk households, then it should be done. While it would be expensive, if it reduces violent crime, there are potential cost savings along the way in the health and justice systems.

I am certain that there are people within our community who have been involved in programmes such as these, and who know what to do and how to do it. I believe that the Mirrors programme is a very good start, with school programmes, parent programmes, camps, etc. More than 7,000 people have benefited from this. If there is good data about its effectiveness, it needs expanding, it needs promoting, it needs more staff and a wider reach.

I am certainly no expert, but we do have experts, and we need to be following proven methods. And, most importantly, we need to be funding these proven methods.

SAM BRODER

Devonshire