It's becoming a nightmare for Caribbean youth, a headache that begins with youth gang criminal activity on neighborhood streets but usually ends with a stint in state prison.

Because of the seriousness of the matter, one of the newest and youngest members of New York City Council, Jumaane Williams, a West Indian who achieved the unthinkable last November by defeating an incumbent at City Hall, plans to use the influence of the committee he chairs to focus attention on the dimensions of the headache and how the City is dealing with it.

"We are going to be very interested in the impact of gang activity, criminal activity involving our young people, many of them children of Caribbean parents," Williams told the Carib News. "We have to make sure that we have all of the alternatives to joining the gangs and avoiding incarceration. The alternative to going to prison means avoiding becoming hardened criminals and the problems that spring from that."

Williams, the newly appointed Chairman of the Council's Oversight Committee, a panel which monitors programs and policies of the entire range of City services last November defeated Dr. Kendall Stewart, a two-term councilman whose family roots are in St. Vincent. Williams, the son of Grenadian parents now occupies the 45th District seat in East Flatbush and parts of Canarsie, in Brooklyn.

"Yes absolutely 100 percent, it's a problem in the District which is a heavily Caribbean populated community," he explained. "I think some of the methods the authorities are using to deal with the problem are ineffective. We want to make sure that whatever the City and the communities do going forward are effective by working to prevent gang activity."

Although Williams, who also sits on the Council's housing committee didn't have precise figures on West Indian youth involvement in gangs, he said that it was a fact those West Indian youths, especially the children who were born in the United States of Caribbean parents were turning increasingly to gang activity that usually became criminal in nature.

"My community in Brooklyn is heavily West Indian and we do have a lot of rival gang activity," he explained.

"Yes, it's true our young people of West Indian heritage are participating in it. I am not an expert but I have done some work on this matter and I do know from the advocates and from doing some work on it that there are many different issues involved here.

"A lot of young people join gangs and an obvious reason is for protection," he pointed out.

"Then there is the sense of camaraderie, a sense of family. Also when you have idle youth they will get into trouble. In addition, there are those who turn to illicit businesses to get money. All of these things play a part."

Peddling illegal drugs was part of the activity he would be trying to prevent.

What then are the solutions?

The Councilmember, a community organizer and advocate before entering politics last year and [who] was endorsed by some of the City's powerful labor unions, thinks encouraging young people to remain in school, while at the same time providing them with a wide range of activities – not to mention "love and affection" – would serve as deterrents to turning to gangs. Invariably gang membership leads to crime and violence, especially drug trafficking.

"Programs like drop-out prevention and intervention would be useful. Young people who remain in school and get a higher education with graduate degrees are less likely to be in gangs," he argued.

"If they have access to jobs and employment they too are less likely to be in gangs. If they are in an environment that fosters love, a feeling of belonging, they too are less likely to be in a gang."

Williams said that the City Police Department was concerned about the problem and was trying to do something about.

The Councilmember didn't have specific figures on the immigrant youth gang members but he said that "based on anecdotal information," it seemed clear that the West Indians turning to gangs were youths born in the United States of West Indian mothers and fathers.

"I don't know the breakdown of it, but I would think that they are people of West Indian parentage, who were born here. But I can't say for sure," was the way he put it.