The Link between an Unhealthy Environment and Crime on St Maarten

Over the past decades St. Maarten has been faced with two issues that are increasingly eroding our national psyche and has caused many of us to question what it means to be a St. Maartener and the pride that that label should bring with it. While the crime rate on our island is taking on frightening proportions, affecting the lives and well being of a broad spectrum of our society, our natural environmental is being degraded at an equally frightening pace. What is interesting to note is that both the increase in crime rate and the decrease in our environmental quality seems to be occurring parallel to each other and it may be relevant to examine what influence environmental degradation has on the increase in crime that has so tarnished the image of our home. It is an established fact that many factors contribute to an increase in crime: poverty, societal gaps and inadequate education just to name a few. But increasingly, studies have shown that a society that functions within an unhealthy environment will eventually get sick and start to exhibit physical (vector borne diseases such as dengue fever and malaria) and psychological (crime, corruption, apathy) symptoms before it withers and dies.

A study released by the Scottish city of Edinburgh has shown that the steps it took to improve its environmental quality resulted in a reduction of violent crime as well as the creation of new opportunities for recreation and activities which provide constructive alternatives to criminal activity. It is a sad fact that many of the criminal acts on St. Maarten are committed by individuals below thirty. When one speaks to them they often cite boredom and apathy as one of the major contributing factors for the committing of the crime. St. Maarten has very little in the way of recreational opportunities which distract from criminal behavior. I was fortunate enough that I fell in love with the ocean from an early age and my interest in the sea and diving took up most of my time. A few years ago I was involved in a program where a group of youngsters were trained to become ecologically conscious divers, and many of them have pursued interests related to the marine environment and have become expert divers themselves, moving away from a possible life of crime. While I was working on a project in Africa I was involved in a program where child soldiers were trained to become rangers on marine protected areas, and many left to pursue environmental programs within their own country, returning to enhance their own communities. Many young people on our island, however, do not have that opportunity due to the environment, both social and natural, in which they were raised and now have criminal records as thick as the bible.

What is more frightening, however, are the results of various studies that have shown that pollution has a direct physical affect that causes an increase in criminal behavior. A study from the University of Lagos in Nigeria has shown that the conversion of environmentally fragile areas into urbanized areas with poor infrastructure has resulted in an increased poverty and crime rate due to pollutants that were found in the community’s drinking water and breathing air. A similar study released by NATO suggests that the human brain is being damaged by pollutants and that people exposed to certain chemicals experience a marked decline in intelligence, causing anti-social and socially damaging behavior (which is what crime is essentially). A paper jointly published by the American FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suggest that high levels of copper, lead, and manganese, which are common marine pollutants, have caused the breakdown of inhibition mechanisms in the brain, causing violent urges to be inadequately controlled. There are a myriad of point sources for such chemicals on our island: the landfill in the center of our capital, untreated household waste that is pumped into our sea, poorly managed development, and unregulated coastal industries just to name a few. What is sad is that the people most affected by these chemicals are adolescents and pre-adolescents who, coincidentally or not, commit the majority of criminal acts.

Even if one were to disregard the effects mentioned above, it is a simple fact that history, culture, lifestyle, and stages of development of a social group, society, or nation are exclusively or largely governed by the health of its environment. Do we then, as a budding nation, want our national identity be developed amidst the status quo? If we, as a people, continue to let poor infrastructural development and increased environmental degradation continue unrestrained we cannot expect to start to begin to cure the social ills that we face. A human being simply needs fresh air, clean water, and sufficient green to function to his or her full potential, and we need to function to our full potential if we want to achieve our goals. What we are now doing is trying to study for the most important exam of our lives sitting at a dirty and cluttered desk. We cannot focus because we are faced with issues that are interrelated and not adequately addressed. But despite this all; despite the fact that our youth find comfort in crime; despite the fact that our environment is being damaged at an alarming rate; and despite the fact that our island is sick, both physically and psychologically, and is in desperate need of a cure, St. Maarten is still our beautiful island home and it is in our own interest that we must strive and cooperate to protect both our beautiful people and our beautiful land and sea.