Let’s all take a step back and admit that inso­far as crime is con­cerned this Jamaican Government, like the one before, has played its hand and lost.
Can we at least be hon­est with our­selves that declar­ing States of Emergencies and installing Zones Of Special Operations are only serv­ing to dis­perse and dis­trib­ute crim­i­nals to oth­er areas, away from those des­ig­nat­ed zones? 

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​w​h​a​c​k​-​a​-​m​o​l​e​-​c​r​i​m​e​-​s​t​r​a​t​e​gy/

So the Prime Minister has just returned to the Island from a CARICOM con­fer­ence, he announced that a State Of Emergency has been declared in the Saint Andrew South Police Area. For those of you not famil­iar with the geog­ra­phy of the Kingston Metropolitan area, that is in the area called the Hunt’s Bay Police division. 

State of Public Emergency has been declared in the St. Andrew South Police Division

A State of Public Emergency has been declared in the St. Andrew South Police Division. The Government remains com­mit­ted to strate­gi­cal­ly address­ing issues relat­ing to safe­ty and secu­ri­ty in our com­mu­ni­ties and across the coun­try. I ask all Jamaicans to report what you know about dons, drugs and guns to help make Jamaica a safer space.

Posted by Andrew Holness on Sunday, July 7, 2019

At the same time, there are hot spots spring­ing up all across the Island. Clarendon is out of con­trol as gang­sters run the place in that parish so to speak. Elsewhere in the cor­po­rate area, crime has gone up in most police divi­sions wip­ing out the reduc­tions expe­ri­enced in 2018.
Even in Manchester, a Parish not exact­ly know for uncon­trol­lable crime, things have seem­ing­ly got­ten out of hand. We made some inquiries as to what could have caused the crime spike in that parish?
We want­ed to under­stand why Manchester which saw a 31% reduc­tion in mur­ders last year is expe­ri­enc­ing a 100% increase in mur­ders?
We learned that the Commanding offi­cer for that Parish, hands-on Superintendent Wayne Cameron has been away from that com­mand for the past six months and all hell seemed to have bro­ken loose.
A lit­tle bird has informed us that the Superintendent may be back at the helm of that divi­sion so hope­ful­ly, things will sta­bi­lize in that parish soon­er than later.

The Thriving Business Of Crime In Jamaica, It’s Inception, And What It Will Take To Break It’s Back.

In Clarendon two mem­bers of the JDF have been gunned down in the space of 15 days the lat­ter was killed this morn­ing after a par­ty in the Clarendon Park area of the parish.
Dead is Private Paul Lindsay oth­er­wise called Gary who was shot rough­ly eight times by an assailant who report­ed­ly emerged from near­by bush­es and opened fire on Lindsay who had just con­clud­ed a round-robin par­ty.
On June 22^nd Private Garfield Williams was gunned down along ceme­tery road in Denbigh, in the same parish.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​w​r​o​n​g​-​h​e​a​d​e​d​-​a​p​p​r​o​a​c​h​-​t​o​-​c​r​i​m​e​-​f​u​e​l​i​n​g​-​c​r​i​m​e​-​v​i​d​eo/

Whether there is a sys­temic cam­paign of ter­ror against mem­bers of the JDF is still unclear, as two deaths do not estab­lish a full pat­tern. At the same time, there has been a steady increase in vio­lence in the parish, which has prompt­ed some to call for the removal of that com­mand­ing offi­cer Mrs. Cameron-Powell.
In fair­ness to Mrs. Cameron Powell and any oth­er com­man­der who would tack­le that divi­sion the strate­gies need­ed to bring crime to a screech­ing halt will not be tol­er­at­ed by this Prime Minister his cabal of crim­i­nal rights lob­by or the coun­try in general.

Jamaica’s Crime Strategies Protect Offenders Rather Than Their Victims…

Just today I saw a post made by the Prime Minister, in it, he asked cit­i­zens to report inci­dents of crime to the author­i­ties. He had the JDF tip line ahead of the nation’s police tip line.
To some peo­ple, this may be incon­se­quen­tial, not to me. Since he came to office he has demon­strat­ed that he doesn’t care too much about the police, and as we have seen he even made a for­mer head of the JDF the police com­mis­sion­er.
Again, this may not seem like much to the aver­age non-skep­tic, but, to me, he has vir­tu­al­ly made the JDF his police depart­ment of choice. 

Now here is the kick­er, not only has he made the JDF the new police force, but the so-called awe and love that pre­vi­ous­ly exist­ed for the mil­i­tary because its mem­bers were not as exposed as the mem­bers of the JCF are, and they weren’t out there arrest­ing peo­ple, is now gone and the guns are turn­ing on them.
I warned that that would occur, giv­en time and his pen­chant for push­ing the JDF as a pseu­do-police force. 

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​a​n​d​r​e​w​-​h​o​l​n​e​s​s​-​i​s​-​a​-​l​i​g​h​t​w​e​i​g​h​t​-​a​n​d​-​a​n​-​a​b​y​s​m​a​l​-​f​a​i​l​u​r​e​-​o​n​-​c​r​i​m​e​-​l​i​k​e​-​t​h​e​-​p​n​p​-​l​e​a​d​e​r​s​-​b​e​f​o​r​e​-​h​im/

The for­mer gov­ern­ment of the PNP did not have a clue how to end the crime scourge plagu­ing our coun­try. The for­mer Minister of National Security Peter Bunting, a man now locked in a strug­gle for the lead­er­ship of the par­ty, once said that the coun­try need­ed divine inter­ven­tion to deal with crime.
As Minister with respon­si­bil­i­ty for crime Bunting’s state­ment was shock­ing and trans­par­ent­ly clear that the par­ty and admin­is­tra­tion were bereft of ideas and need­ed to be put out to pas­ture.
Win or lose Peter Bunting and the PNP are still in the dark as to solu­tions for this crisis. 

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​b​l​i​n​k​e​r​e​d​-​p​o​l​i​t​i​c​a​l​-​a​l​l​e​g​i​a​n​c​e​s​-​b​l​i​n​d​-​t​o​-​t​h​e​-​d​a​n​g​e​r​s​-​c​r​i​m​e​-​p​o​s​es/

Jamaica got rid of hang­ing to suit great Britain and for what? Britain does not have heav­i­ly armed gun­men roam­ing their streets killing whomev­er they wish.
In Jamaica, there is a bat­tery of crim­i­nal rights advo­cates oper­at­ing as human rights activists, many of them with bases in Washington DC.
Additionally, Jamaica has cast aside its hard­core police offi­cers in search of a [Utopian]sic cour­tesy corps to sat­is­fy the Leahy amend­ment.
See Act here: https://​fas​.org/​s​g​p​/​c​r​s​/​r​o​w​/​R​4​3​3​6​1​.​pdf .
In addi­tion to that, they cre­at­ed INDECOM and oth­er lay­ers of over­sight of the JCF rather than spend those resources upgrad­ing and equip­ping the JCF.
This has result­ed in mass attri­tion from the force. In the process of try­ing to stem the mass exo­dus, back­ground checks have suf­fered and so the image of the force con­tin­ues to suf­fer.
Ironically, as it relates to the Leahy amend­ment, the help Jamaica would receive from the US for it’s con­for­mi­ty to the dic­tates of that act is so mar­gin­al it was not worth it.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​h​o​l​n​e​s​s​-​u​t​o​p​i​a​n​-​f​o​r​c​e​-​f​o​r​-​g​o​o​d​-​w​i​l​l​-​n​o​t​-​p​r​o​t​e​c​t​-​y​o​u​-​f​r​o​m​-​t​h​e​-​k​i​l​l​e​r​s​-​i​t​s​-​a​-​l​o​a​d​-​o​f​-​c​r​o​ck/

According to the ACLU, the US has not rat­i­fied any inter­na­tion­al human rights treaties since December 2002, when it rat­i­fied two option­al pro­to­cols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Since that time, impor­tant new treaties have been adopt­ed and oth­er long-stand­ing treaties have gained new mem­ber states. Unfortunately, the US has too often remained out­side these efforts. For exam­ple, the US is the only coun­try oth­er than Somalia that has not rat­i­fied the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most wide­ly and rapid­ly rat­i­fied human rights treaty in his­to­ry. It is one of only sev­en coun­tries-togeth­er with Iran, Nauru, Palau, Somalia, Sudan, and Tonga- that has failed to rat­i­fy the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

Simply put, the US does not allow any­thing to get in the way of uphold­ing its laws.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, a busi­ness own­er, avid researcher, and blog­ger. 
He is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He also writes occa­sion­al­ly for the web­site Medium​.com.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.