Children who are living in fear, such as those who participated Wednesday in a Gleaner Editors' Forum, must be treated immediately or they could become delinquent, says child psychologist, Dr. Sandra McDermott.

Dr. McDermott was moved to tears by the stories published in Thursday's Gleaner that told of 10 primary school children from inner-city communities and their fear of living among gunmen and losing relatives and neighbours to gunfire.

"Children who are often angry and traumatised can become violent and because they learn violence, and this is the way they learn to solve problems, they get in gangs," said Dr. McDermott, who called the newspaper after reading the articles.

The child and clinical psychologist said that this situation was a vicious cycle which is a contributory factor to the country's rising crime rate.

She said: "A lot of these gunmen have numbed their feelings so killing people is a displacement of internalised rage and anger."

And Mary Clarke, children's advocate, corroborated the stories that came out of the Editors' Forum.

A few days after four persons were murdered in West Kingston, last April, Ms. Clarke and a team of specialists visited some three schools of the area.

She said that they were told stories of how schoolchildren were pinned down underneath desks for some six hours as gunmen traded bullets.

afraid to move

Being afraid to move, many of the children could not even go to the bathroom.

"It was easier for the boys as the teachers gave them containers to urinate in. It really was a horrible experience for all of them," Ms. Clarke recalled.

The Office of the Children's Advocate has also reported to the police, incidence of children attending the popular dancehall session, Passa Passa, on Wednesday nights, in west Kingston. These children end up going to school late or tired after attending the session that is held until daybreak on Thursdays.

Meanwhile, Dr. Charles Carr, clinical psychologist, agreed that some of these children, because of what they are exposed to, could grow up to to be juvenile delinquents.

"They have anger, resentment and may think nobody loves them because they have witnessed all that anger and fear," said Dr. Carr, who has worked in juvenile centres in the United States of America.