At Risk Communities Quotes

“The gangs filled a void in society, and the void was the absence of family life. The gang became a family. For some of those guys in the gang that was the only family they knew, because when their mothers had them they were too busy having children for other men. Some of them never knew their daddies. Their daddies never look back after they got their mothers pregnant, and those guys just grew up and they couldn’t relate to nobody.
When they had their problems, who could they have talked to? Nobody would listen, so they gravitated together and form a gang. George Mackey, the former representative for the historic Fox Hill community in The Bahamas.”
― Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father

“Joining a gang is like sky diving without a parachute. Oh, at first it’s all fun, as you take on gravity in a thrilling and exhilarating free fall towards earth. The truth is, anything that is risky and dangerous always starts out as fun. But the odds are always stacked in gravity’s favor, for you will eventually come face to face with the earth, and mother earth always wins those battles. The same thing can be said about being in a gang.”
― Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father

“A lot of those young men were just looking for love, and they got that love from Scrooge. They were not perhaps able to get it from home or from no one in the community. So instead of holding on to Scrooge, they could hold on to me. That was the way I looked at it. If Scrooge could get a young boy to follow him, I should have been able to get one to follow me as well: so why can’t I as a police officer do the same? Allerdyce Strachan, the first female to rise to the rank of superintendent on the Royal Bahamas Police Force.”
― Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father

“The Rebellions were the first gang in The Bahamas, to come up with a popular logo/brand in the wearing of Raiders clothing. However, other neighborhoods gave birth to their own gangs using popular sporting team images as their official colors and name. You had the Hoyas Bull Dogs out of Kemp Road; the Coconut Grove area took on the name Nike, which became their clothing of choice. Miami Street took on the name Hurricanes, and wore Miami Hurricanes clothing. However, when you look at it closely, because of the lack of involved fathers, a lot of us were simply lacking an image and a positive identity of ourselves.”
― Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father

“I asked, “When the Rebellions were at its peak doing nonsense, everyone was trying to keep away from the area, yet you were going in, why were you going into that area?
Supt. Strachan answered quite frankly,
Because I was not afraid. I felt like they are my people, they are my color. I don’t know of anyone born after me that I should be afraid of, that was how I felt. I knew I could’ve walk through Strachan’s Corner, sit down and felt at home, and their parents also accepted me.
I came to the conclusion; these kids just need someone to show them some attention. They just wanted to belong, that was what a lot of them were looking for. So I said to myself, if I could assist them I would, and that was what I did. Supt. Allerdyce Strachan, the first female officer to rise to the rank of superintendent on the Royal Bahamas Police Force.”
― Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father

“90% of us came from single-parent homes who were in the gang. There was just a small 10% who had a mother and a father in the home. For a lot of us, we did not had that father or authority figure who could have intervened on our behalf. Where we could have said, ‘You know, daddy, Johnny tried to rob me or Johnny just slapped me’, and our father could have either taken us to the police station, or went to school with us to address the issue. So we had to defend for ourselves. Shelton ‘Apples’ Burrows reform gang leader”
― Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father

“The older guys in the neighborhood were our father figures. Even though they were doing foolishness we looked up to them, and they looked out for us. When we would be out playing and it was getting dark, they would tell us now don’t be out here too late, because you know that freaks does come out at night. Anthony ‘Ada’ Allen, one of the former leaders and founders of the Rebellion Raiders”
― Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father

“The majority of us were from single parent family homes. You could have counted the fellas on your fingers that had a mummy and a daddy at home. Anthony ‘Ada’ Allen, one of the former leaders and founders of the Rebellion Raiders”
― Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father

“There were times in meeting I was called a baby sitter, a social worker by my colleagues. Now that we have a different leader, he looks at it the way I look at it, and he supported me in what I was doing. There were times he saw me crying, and he would comfort me and say that’s okay. Commissioner Paul Farquharson was one of my biggest supporters.
It used to hurt me, because I was trying to help somebody and they say I was babysitting. Don’t tell me I am babysitting, now that I have retired now I am babysitting. So not because I was trying to reach out and work with those children, don’t say I was babysitting them.
I work the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for 22 years and I was rough in CID. I realize CID was the end result, because whenever you get to that stage you are almost finished. It is in line with the broken window theory, if you can save those youngsters before they start committing those big offenses, then they wouldn’t reach CID. Crime prevention was a part of my job, I believe in going out there and trying to prevent that youngster from committing crime. He should respect other people’s property. Supt. Allerdyce Strachan, the first female officer to rise to the rank of superintendent on the Royal Bahamas Police Force.”
― Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father

“When I look at it carefully, by examining the interviews and the various social scientists’ studies, it becomes easy for me to see that we all were just rebelling. Regardless of the area we grew up in or the gang we were affiliated with, or which part of the Western world we found ourselves in, we all were rebelling. We were rebelling and crying out for our fathers. We were rebelling against the home conditions that existed in our communities. We needed our fathers, but above all we wanted to be loved and accepted by them. Since we couldn’t find it at home and in our respective communities, we created it for ourselves.”
― Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father