A People And Their Leaders With S**t For Brains.……

Over the years we have seen both polit­i­cal par­ties in Jamaica do things which begs the age old ques­tion “are Jamaican author­i­ties seri­ous about reduc­ing and ulti­mate­ly erad­i­cat­ing crime’?

Lets get some­thing straight here the gov­ern­ing admin­is­tra­tion has been hor­ri­ble stew­ards of the nation’s affairs . This is not just about the econ­o­my and the moral deca­dence which char­ac­ter­izes Jamaican. The Party has active­ly con­tributed to crime direct­ly both by omis­sion and commission.

The Opposition Labor Party has had less time at the tiller but there is ample evi­dence of the con­tri­bu­tion the Labor par­ty has made to the crime cul­ture on the Island as well.
Which brings us to the Police.
The Police depart­ment rel­e­gat­ed itself to lap­dog sta­tus for the polit­i­cal class, Commissioners and rank and file has come and gone but the mind­set remain the same.
The depart­ment has a PhD at the helm but the mind­set through­out the con­stab­u­lary seem to be that of a defeat­ed sec­ond class cit­i­zen­ry, brow­beat­en, and bat­tered into accept­ing it’s lot.
Attrition is high, by some accounts over 600 offi­cers left the depart­ment in a sin­gle year. There has to be a rea­son for this , par­tic­u­lar­ly in a coun­try where jobs are as hard to come by as find­ing a politi­cian with good character.
Which begs the ques­tion, why are offi­cers going through the train­ing only to dump the depart­ment at the slight­est oppor­tu­ni­ty for an out?

Jamaicans have always been a peo­ple high­ly fas­ci­nat­ed by posi­tions and pow­er . The big­ger heads men­tal­i­ty is an inte­gral part of the Island’s pop­u­lar culture.
The Police Commissioner is a PhD and he may be the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of more respect from the self appoint­ed Elites than his pre­de­ces­sors but there is still a nag­ging sense that the police are mere yaad bways , unwor­thy of respect.
Don’t get me wrong, over the years the Police have done more than enough to earn the dis­re­spect of the most for­giv­ing and pious Angels.
The list of charges against the police leaves well think­ing observers includ­ing for­mer offi­cers stunned that offi­cers could be engaged in some of the crimes they are accused of committing.
♦Contract killings ♦ Extra-Judicial killings ♦ Robbery ♦ Rape. ♦ Conspiracy ♦
The list of crim­i­nal engage­ments by offi­cers defies logic.

As a for­mer cop I could argue that the JCF is not the only police agency strug­gling with those issues .
As a Christian I could argue the char­ac­ter of peo­ple every­where are more sus­pect because over­all good val­ues and best prac­tices are sim­ply not been taught and where taught are not been adhered to.
I could make those argu­ments but they would not be fair argu­ments to make, peo­ple deserve bet­ter police services.

However as we look at the crimes and miss-steps of the police we have to look at the pop­u­la­tion and it’s role in all of this .
Have the Jamaican pub­lic been respect­ful and embrac­ing of law enforcement?
Have the peo­ple embraced or shown an under­stand­ing of the role law-enforce­ment plays in a demo­c­ra­t­ic society?
On both counts the answer is no.
The Island built a cul­ture of ani­mos­i­ty , resent­ment and oppo­si­tion to law enforce­ment. From as far back as the cre­ation of the Police ser­vices after the Morant Bay Rebellion Jamaicans arguably decid­ed they would have an acri­mo­nious rela­tion­ship with those who enforce the laws.
The JCF which was born out of the ash­es of the rebel­lion was seen as a tool of the pow­er­ful cre­at­ed to oppress the underclass.
Despite the fact that the British left and the police became the sons and daugh­ters of the work­ing class the per­va­sive cul­ture of oppo­si­tion to police remained.

The para­dox­i­cal jux­ta­po­si­tion of the emer­gent Rastafarian counter cul­ture and the ani­mos­i­ty toward polic­ing did noth­ing to help the young nation with the large illit­er­ate under­class to under­stand the need for sup­port­ing and nur­tur­ing the rule of law.
A cold war devel­oped between the cannabis smok­ing Rastafarians and the police. The result was that the oppor­tunis­tic politi­cians of the day saw an oppor­tu­ni­ty to dri­ve a wedge between police and peo­ple for polit­i­cal gain and they exploit­ed it to the max.

HOUSE COMMITTEE URGES INCREASED POWERS FOR INDECOM BOSS

Fast for­ward to today and the (inde­com) Act, bal­loon­ing mur­der rates , cops leav­ing in droves , Terrence Williams and politi­cians of both polit­i­cal par­ties are either too stu­pid to under­stand the dam­age they are doing or they intend to destroy the Force, grow crime and turn the coun­try over to terrorists.
As it was in the begin­ning, politi­cians of both par­ties are join­ing togeth­er to give even more pow­er to (inde­com) rather than empow­er and out­fit the police to go after crime.

In the end Jamaica is well on it’s way to end up where it sets out to be, a par­adise for crim­i­nals. You sim­ply can­not expect to have good out­comes from bad strate​gies​.Talk to Jamaicans and 9 out of 10 hates police even though they have rel­a­tives who were, or are cops. Many have no idea why they hate cops , they sim­ply do , they were raised that way.
Ironically when they live abroad they are respect­ful of offi­cers and those who aren’t end up on(ice) planes with a one way tick­et back home.
They know in their host coun­tries their dis­re­spect­ful shenani­gans are best left at home.
In the age of ter­ror bomb­ings and behead­ings, pur­vey­ors of anar­chy and may­hem from across the globe are always look­ing for places to plant their flags.
Soon and very soon Jamaicans of all stripes and sta­tions will come to real­ize the fol­ly of their ways , by then it will be too late.
For all intents and pur­pos­es it may already be.

You do not build a nation with­out secur­ing the population.
You do not build a nation with­out estab­lish­ing a foun­da­tion of laws for the pro­tec­tion of the population.
From ear­li­est record­ed his­to­ry this was understood.
Jamaican lead­ers have shit for brain so this eludes them but the peo­ple have been com­plic­it and they deserve every inch of what they get.