St. Maarten Private Eye

'Social education and social care is also very important, many young criminals are created from the society we have, from poverty, poor or dysfuctional parenting, from tragedy and hardship"

While it is true that devialnt behavior can be the result of these things. This justification is a cop out. It does not explain why muchof the crime is committed by the offspring of middle to upper class citizens. Of all the reason' stated above, negligent parents is in my opinion the only one that is legit.
It would be interesting to do a survey of the background of the inmates at Pt. Bl. My guess is that many would be surprised in that most of them no nothing about hardship or poverty.

St. Maarten has long been on that slippery slope to ruin, only we chose to ignore the obvious and instead profit from it. By we I mean all of us. We chose to ignore the flow of drugs because it only went through here and many became wealthy. Now it is on the street and killing our youth and the cause for breaking into our homes and businesses
We chose to ignore the corrupt civil servants and elected officials because we knew we could always go through the back door to get what we needed. Now the ones that have the power to grant favors will only deal with big money. We are useless to them.
We chose to allow our judicial and security system to become a joke because only foreigeners were the victims. Now OUR security and islands economy is at risk.
I see very bad times ahead before there is any hope of improvement. I see the gun shops in Marigot unable to stock enough weapons. I see people getting killed (victims and criminals) The powers that be have absolutely no idea how fed up we are with all the shit that has been going on. People are prepared to protect what they have. I see all that cash that has been pumped into St. Maarten in the last four years drying up. I see an economy on the verge of ruin and crime completely and totaly out of control.
Then I see quite a few politicians in jail and the Dutch essentially taking control of St. Maarten ( and they should) I see an economy being rebiult on honest money and hardwork. There is hope but it will take a dedication, committment and accountability that we are not used to. We will have to accept that we cannot do business as usual. If we want improvement it will come at a pirce.
The publication of these reports and all the follow up looks like a concerted effort to make Holland realize that we have been screwed by Curacao for way to long and it is time to point the fingers where they belong.
South, just a couple miles off the Venezuelan Coast.
When Curacao is taken out of the loop and Holland can deal with us seperately, then and only then will we begin to see improvements, BUT are we willing to accept the help and the conditions that go along with it????
This remains to be seen.
In the mean time some public lashings and maybe a hanging or two would make the criminals think twice.