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CARICOM leaders have agreed that gang violence and gun violence are acts of terror and there should be legislation that allows the judicial system to recognise and treat with this.

Speaking at the closing media conference of the Caricom Heads of Government Meeting in Barbados on Friday, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said the Cari­com summit spent a lot of time discussing, strategising and taking decisions on the unacceptably high level of violent crime, focusing on le­gislation, law enforcement and the public health aspects with respect to the legislation.

“We agreed that notwith­standing social considera­tions, that the changing nature of crime is such that actions or acts of violence in the public space in certain instances must now be regarded as acts of terrorism. We are talking here about indiscriminate shooting in a public place where the perpetrators endanger all and sundry. In order to address that, we believe that the legis­lation needs to be cognisant of what exactly we are experiencing now as against what the existing legislation anticipated,” he said.