What kind of society steals the tools children need to escape poverty?
By Dr. Leahcim Semaj
Transformational Psychologist
A ten-year-old boy heard that thieves had broken into his school again and began to cry. “Mommy, them people yah want me turn cruff.” That may be one of the most painful statements we will hear from a Jamaican child this year. He understood something that the adults who ransacked Bickersteth Primary and Infant School apparently did not – or did not care to consider. He understood that a school is supposed to help him become something. When you steal its computers, destroy its doors and force its classrooms to close, you are interfering with his future.
The Jamaica Observer report tells us that thieves broke into the school, pried open windows and doors, damaged offices and stole computers and tuck-shop supplies. This was not the first time. It was the fifth break-in in seven years. The principal also pointed to recent robberies at other schools in western Jamaica, including Bogue Hill, Retrieve and Anchovy. This is no longer an isolated act of desperation. It appears to be a pattern.
These thieves did not merely rob a building. They robbed children. They robbed teachers. They robbed parents. And ultimately, they robbed Jamaica.
A School Is More Than a Building
The computer stolen from a school is not simply another piece of electronic equipment. For some children, it may be their only reliable access to the digital world. It is where they begin learning to type, research, solve problems and imagine themselves participating in a modern economy.
The food stolen from the tuck shop is not simply merchandise. In some communities, it may be the only proper meal available to a child during the school day. The damaged windows and doors are not merely maintenance problems. The money used to repair them must now be taken from something else—perhaps books, teaching materials, sanitation, sports or student support. And the lost school days cannot always be recovered. Bickersteth had to close temporarily while staff and community members cleaned up and made repairs. Online lessons were offered, but we know that “online” does not mean “accessible” for every Jamaican family.
One group steals in a few minutes. Children, parents, teachers and taxpayers spend months paying the bill.
What Does This Tell Us About Our Society?
It tells us that a disturbing number of people have become disconnected from the idea of the common good. There was a time when certain spaces were considered almost sacred: the church, the clinic and the school. They were not always perfect institutions, but the community understood that destroying them meant harming everybody. Something has shifted. Too many people now appear to ask only one question: “What can I get from this?” They do not ask: “Who will suffer because of what I take?” This is more than a crime problem. It is a moral and psychological problem.
A society begins to decay when citizens no longer feel that they belong to anything larger than themselves. The school becomes “government property.” The streetlight becomes “government property.” The water pipe, clinic equipment and electrical cable become “government property.” But government property is our property. We paid for it. Our children need it. Our communities depend on it. When we destroy public property, we are not beating the system. We are vandalising our own house—and then complaining that nobody has repaired the roof.
Who Robs a School?
We do not know who committed these particular crimes, so we must resist the temptation to diagnose people we have never examined. Still, the behaviour allows us to consider a possible psychological and social profile. These may be people living with immediate economic desperation. They may see a computer, a bag of food or a piece of equipment as something that can be converted quickly into cash. But poverty alone cannot explain this. Most poor Jamaicans do not rob schools. Many poor parents make extraordinary sacrifices to send their children to school properly dressed, fed and equipped. Poverty can create pressure. It does not automatically erase conscience.
The thieves may also demonstrate what psychologists call moral disengagement. This is the mental process by which people disconnect their actions from their moral consequences. They tell themselves:
“The Government will replace it.”
“The school has plenty.”
“Everybody tief.”
“Nobody nah dead.”
“Mi just a try survive.”
These stories make wrongdoing easier to live with. There may also be low empathy, weak attachment to community, poor impulse control, substance dependency, criminal opportunity, or participation in an organised market for stolen goods.
And let us not ignore the buyer. Someone is purchasing these computers. Someone may be buying the stolen food and equipment. Theft survives because there is a market prepared to convert a child’s loss into somebody else’s bargain. The person who knowingly buys a stolen school computer is not separate from the crime. The buyer is part of the robbery.
Did They Attend the Schools They Robbed?
Perhaps they actually attended the schools that they robbed. That possibility makes the situation even more troubling. Some of the people robbing these institutions may once have sat in similar classrooms. A teacher may have taught them to read. A tuck-shop worker may have fed them when they were hungry. A community member may have helped them buy books or uniforms.
What happened between the child at the desk and the adult pulling the grill from the wall? Did the school fail to reach them? Did the family collapse? Did they become disconnected from the community? Did repeated unemployment, exclusion or criminal association convince them that education had no value? Or did they simply learn that stealing carries little risk and sometimes brings a quick reward? These questions do not excuse the behaviour. They help us understand what must be repaired if punishment alone is not to become a revolving door.
Do They Have Children Who Need These Schools?
Very likely, some do. They may have children, nieces, nephews, younger siblings or cousins attending public schools. Their families may depend on the same educational system they are helping to weaken. That is one of the great contradictions of social breakdown: people frequently damage the systems they themselves need.
The man who steals the electrical cable needs electricity. The person who vandalises the health centre may need treatment next week. The parent who helps to sell a stolen school computer may complain that his child is not learning enough technology. Immediate gratification overwhelms long-term thinking. The stolen item has value tonight. The damaged future feels too far away to matter. But the future always arrives.
How Close Are We to the Bottom?
That depends on what we mean by “the bottom.” The bottom is not reached simply because crimes occur. Every society experiences crime. We are approaching the bottom when crime no longer produces outrage. We are approaching the bottom when neighbours know who is robbing the school but remain silent. We are approaching the bottom when somebody can arrive with a recently stolen computer and find a willing buyer who asks no questions. We are approaching the bottom when the criminals believe that the community is more afraid of them than protective of its children. And we are approaching the bottom when a ten-year-old child begins to believe that adults are deliberately destroying his opportunity to become better.
But the story also contains evidence that we have not yet reached the bottom. A community tradesman whose children attended the school reportedly dropped what he was doing and came to help with the repairs. Staff members cleaned the damaged rooms. The principal worried about what the children would see and the psychological effect it might have on them. Parents expressed anger and heartbreak. A mother reassured her son:
“You nah turn cruff. We will stand with you.”
That is the other Jamaica.
The thieves broke the school.
The community began putting it back together.
Our future depends on which of these two Jamaicas becomes stronger.
Finding a Way Up and Forward
More grills cannot be our only answer. We cannot keep transforming schools into prisons while the thieves remain outside. Security matters. Schools need proper lighting, alarms, cameras where appropriate, secure equipment storage and a coordinated rapid-response system. Serial attacks on schools should be treated as a specific category of organised public harm, not as just another break-in. But hardware will not be enough.
Communities must reclaim psychological ownership of their schools. Every school needs an active protection network involving residents, parents, past students, local businesses, churches, the police and community organisations. Suspicious movement should be reported quickly and safely. We also need to disrupt the market for stolen school property. Computers and other equipment should be marked, registered and traceable. Repair shops, second-hand dealers and members of the public must understand that purchasing suspicious equipment helps to steal a child’s future.
Where offenders are caught, there must be consequences. Yet consequences should include more than imprisonment. Restitution, supervised community service and participation in repairing the institutions they damaged may help reconnect the offence to its human cost.
Most importantly, we must listen to the ten-year-old boy. His concern was not merely that the school had lost computers. He feared that somebody was interfering with the person he was trying to become. That child still believes education can take him somewhere. We cannot allow thieves, weak security, community silence or official neglect to teach him otherwise.
Semaj MindSpa Takeaway
When you rob a school, you are not stealing from the Government. You are stealing opportunity from children whose families may already have very little. You are stealing teaching time from educators. You are stealing money from taxpayers. You are stealing hope from the community. You may even be stealing from your own children.
A society does not reach the bottom when a few people behave badly. It reaches the bottom when good people surrender their responsibility to respond. When good people remain silent. The road upward begins when we decide, together, that every school belongs to all of us, and that anyone who attacks a school has attacked the entire community.
The thieves may have taken the computers. We must not allow them to take the children’s future.
We can not give in nor give up because the Best is Yet to Come.