Prime Minister and Member of Parliament for Cat Island, Rum Cay and San Salvador, the Hon. Philip Davis led debate on the Anti-Gang Bill in the House Of Assembly on Wednesday. The aim of the bill is to curb gang related criminal activity including recruitment and retaliatory killings in the country.
In his presentation Davis told Parliamentarians, “we cannot lose another generation of our young men. We cannot let the young Bahamian men who could and should be our heroes and leaders become instead victims and perpetrators.”
Clause 5 (1) of the bill defines gang membership as a person who is a gang leader, a gang member or someone who performs an act as a condition for membership in a gang. The bill further defines a gang member as a person who professes to be a gang member in order to obtain a benefit for himself or another person, intimidate another person into joining a gang or promote a gang while committing an offence.
The penalty for a person committing a crime as a gang leader or member if convicted is up to twenty five years in prison.
The Prime Minister noted, “when the consequences for engaging in criminal activity finally arrive whether in the form of death in the streets or incarceration that is a penalty that must be faced alone, no gang member can face that with you. Once that sentence is pronounced, once that bullet is fired from that gang no one will do the time for you or take that bullet for you.”
