Dear Sir:

I am a young Caribbean man, Dominican to be exact. I'm very concerned with the moral loss of the Caribbean youth, my generation and younger have lost respect for our elders and our peers.

Here we have our Caribbean leaders more concerned with economic gains and profits and we put aside the loss we are making morally.

Dr Martin Luther King said, "Moral loss is as bad as economic loss." We ask why is our crime rate rising, why our kids' grades are lowering, why there are more teenage pregnancy. The Caribbean nations, once proud nations, respectful, and loving nations, what went wrong?

I will tell you this, all nations not necessarily have to have the same laws. Since our leaders followed the developed nations in passing the law where kids can't be punished by teachers and parents things have taken a downward turn. These are two sets of people responsible for grooming young kids into respectable adults. We take the power from them and place it in the hands of television screens and the internet.

This took place under the umbrella of "rights of the child." I personally believe that's one of the worst laws ever passed. The Bible say, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." So when our leaders are looking and thinking of all sort of ways to solve the problem its as simple as reverting to what worked in the past.

Lets look at things, how economist will call it cost benefit analysis. What's worse, one in so many children might get abused or the loss of the upcoming generations?  Children spend most of their time in school and if the teachers can't punish them when they do wrong or fail to do their homework they will grow up not caring. Suspension and expulsion is not effective and only adds to the problem.

When someone breaks the law of a country they are punished; why can't the kids get punished when they do wrong?

I am calling on the leaders, teachers, parents, priest, pastors, everyone concerned to look into changing the law and taking back control of the kids. Let's take back control while we can before it's much too late.

Educate the kids as to how to be a proud Caribbean man or woman, and not an American or European.

A concerned Caribbean young man,

C. Alexander
Chengdu, China