Security challenges pose significant hardship for citizens of Caribbean nations. Public safety is threatened by high rates of crime - especially violent crime - in much of the region, the plague of the illicit drug trade, transnational organized crime, gangs, the current global proliferation of crimes of terrorism and related violent extremism and radicalization. The situation diminishes morale among the youth, their education and their future, and operates as a major push factor. Yet, surprisingly, there has been a scarcity of scholarly work that addresses these conditions. This interdisciplinary volume succinctly responds to the gap in criminological and security studies on the Caribbean by drawing attention to the understudied nexus of crime, violence, and security that is so pervasive in the region, and the ways in which underdevelopment re/creates environments for insecurity. The book is organized in three parts: Part one encompasses conceptualizations of crime, violence and punishment. Part two takes up country cases on crime and security. Part three addresses issues of regional security, both public and private. This timely volume will be valuable reading for scholars, students, practitioners and policy makers who share a critical interest in the scope, impact, and inter-relationality of crime, violence, and in/security in the region.

Security challenges pose significant hardship for citizens of Caribbean nations. Public safety is threatened by high rates of crime - especially violent crime - in much of the region, the plague of the illicit drug trade, transnational organized crime, gangs, the current global proliferation of crimes of terrorism and related violent extremism and radicalization. The situation diminishes morale among the youth, their education and their future, and operates as a major push factor. Yet, surprisingly, there has been a scarcity of scholarly work that addresses these conditions. This interdisciplinary volume succinctly responds to the gap in criminological and security studies on the Caribbean by drawing attention to the understudied nexus of crime, violence, and security that is so pervasive in the region, and the ways in which underdevelopment re/creates environments for insecurity. The book is organized in three parts: Part one encompasses conceptualizations of crime, violence and punishment. Part two takes up country cases on crime and security. Part three addresses issues of regional security, both public and private. This timely volume will be valuable reading for scholars, students, practitioners and policy makers who share a critical interest in the scope, impact, and inter-relationality of crime, violence, and in/security in the region.

The issues surrounding the academic under-performance of the government secondary schools in Trinidad and Tobago, compared with the denominational assisted schools have been debated for many years. An equally persistent issue surrounds the placement in the secondary schools and the inequalities which many persons perceive to be inherent in the process. In this masterly study, Professor Ramesh Deosaran examines the nature and dimensions of inequality in opportunities for education, and their relationship to gender, race, family background and socio-economic status. He effectively demonstrates that unequal opportunity and unequal outcomes are embedded in the country's education system - a legacy from the colonial past that institutionalized a system of schools run by the government and those run by religious denominations but supported by the state. Deosaran points to the 1960 Concordat which enshrined the rights of these denominational assisted schools and argues the case for revisiting the status quo to debate whether to revise, scrap or enshrine the Concordat in the constitution. Deosaran argues that the structural inequity in the education system and its outcomes amount to discrimination against the most disadvantaged groups with serious debilitating implications for the country's social and economic progress and its status as a modern democracy. He calls for a removal of the masks of inequality and discrimination and appeals for sustained , carefully planned and data-driven reforms in Trinidad and Tobago's education system. The study is multi-disciplinary in nature drawing from various disciplines, including politics of education, the sociology of education, the economics of education and educational psychology, backed up by data from his own research and from a variety of reports dating back to the 1960s.