A public safety minister in waiting for so long, Wayne Perinchief is wasting no time tackling the Island’s gangs crisis head on.But while the alarming gun violence he’ll confront as National Security Minister seems a world away from anything he faced as Assistant Police Commissioner, it’s the things that haven’t changed that almost reduce the straight-talking parliamentarian to tears.Mr Perinchief can still recall many of the young individuals he arrested during the 1980s and 1990s, as he worked his way through the ranks before launching his political career in 1998.And so poor is Bermuda’s record on rehabilitation, it’s those same faces he encounters once again in 2011, in his position as chairman of the Parole Board.“The recidivism rate is too high,” Mr Perinchief told The Royal Gazette.“I have arrested guys 20 years ago. Now, as a Parole Board chairman, they are in their 40s and 50s and I am seeing them again.“They were young men when I arrested them. Now they are nearly old men. I almost want to weep. That’s how badly I feel. They haven’t changed or if anything they have gotten worse.”Bermuda’s recidivism rate is 40 percent, meaning four out of every ten people released from prison go on to quickly reoffend.Mr Perinchief said Bermuda’s size makes it hard for people to break their offending habits.“We are a small jurisdiction. It’s very difficult to change the environment for people,” he said.“It may be, since we are so close to the UK now, we can come up with strategies to get people out of cycle of prison, streets, back to prison.”Sending them overseas on courses as part of their parole could give them “a better point of view”, he said.“I do know of some success stories, some programmes based on the UK,” he said. “We can get them on programmes that take them outside of Bermuda. Break the cycle.”But in the immediate term the eyes of the public are on the gang warfare which has seen more than 40 people shot in the past two years.“Crime and drugs, guns,” said Mr Perinchief. “That’s going to be the central focus, what the public are looking to abate. It’s a public safety issue. That’s what people are going to be concerned about, and the emergence of gangs.”Less than a week into his new job, Mr Perinchief has announced plans for two major initiatives: a buy-back guns programme and legislation specifically targeting gang membership.They are not new ideas as far as his Progressive Labour Party colleagues and predecessors as Minister are concerned.“I have been in waiting a long time and I have put some of these ideas forward before in caucus and through other previous Ministers of Public Safety,” said Mr Perinchief, whose 13-year parliamentary career has largely been spent as an outspoken backbencher, frequently a thorn in the side of former Premier Dr Ewart Brown but often overlooked for key Cabinet roles since being sacked as Minister of Community and Cultural Affairs straight after the 2007 general election.“Gangs and get guns off the street. That’s the blip on the radar right now.”He said he would be drawing on findings from the bi-partisan taskforce on gangs, adding: “I’m very keen to get into the scale of work with other Ministers to head off and cut off people participating in gangs, and beef up our rehabilitation of people involved in drugs coming out of prison so that people don’t reoffend.“We have to look at the whole process.”