AMI, United States (AFP) — The Caribbean and its pris­tine beach­es may be a tourist mag­net, but life in par­adise comes at a price: the soar­ing vio­lent crime rate is high­er than in Latin America or Africa.The study, made pub­lic Tuesday by the Interamerican Development Bank, is based on a sur­vey of 3,000 crime vic­tims in each of five coun­tries: the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica and Suriname.

While the non-vio­lent crime rate is low, vio­lent crime rates “are among the high­est in the world”, the report says.

“Nearly one in three said they had lost some­one to vio­lence. Guns are used about twice as often in rob­bery and three times as often in assault in the Caribbean as com­pared with the glob­al aver­age,” the report said.

The aver­age rate “of vic­tim­iza­tion by assault and threat (6.8 per cent) is high­er than in any oth­er region, includ­ing Latin America (4.7 per cent)” or Africa (5.2 per cent). The report states that almost half of all crimes go unre­port­ed to the police. The vic­tims are main­ly 18 to 25 year-old’s who live in poor neigh­bor­hoods far from the tourist resorts.

The Caribbean region “is right­ful­ly known for its beau­ty, warmth, cul­ture, music and, yes, beck­on­ing envi­ron­ment”, said Therese Turner-Jones, who heads the bank’s Caribbean Department.

“But the dark­er side of hav­ing some of the world’s high­est vio­lent crime rates remains a cause for concern.”

One area of spe­cial con­cern is vio­lence against women and children.

“We found that tol­er­ance of vio­lence against women and chil­dren is high­er than com­pa­ra­ble regions,” said Heather Sutton, the report’s lead researcher.

According to the study, one out of three adults approve beat­ing a woman if she is unfaith­ful, a rate high­er than in the United States or Latin America.

“The lit­er­a­ture shows that high tol­er­ance is pre­dic­tive of high lev­els of actu­al vio­lence. This is one impor­tant risk fac­tor that per­pet­u­ates the cycle of vio­lence and delin­quen­cy,” the report said.

At a private/​public sec­tor part­ner­ship forum on crime in New Kingston, on Thursday, attend­ed by Minister of National Security Robert Montague, Opposition spokesman on Tourism Dr. Wykeham McNeill, POJ rep Peter John Thwaites, Guardsman Group Chairman Kenneth Benjamin and oth­ers Andrew Holness the Jamaican Prime Minister had this to say.

“The need for part­ner­ship between all lev­els of the secu­ri­ty sys­tem, includ­ing pri­vate secu­ri­ty guards, Government, civ­il soci­ety and the pri­vate sec­tor, must work togeth­er to con­tribute to eco­nom­ic growth and the cre­ation of a secure soci­ety through col­lab­o­ra­tion and coöperation.”
“In addi­tion to their role in job cre­ation for over 23,000 Jamaicans, the pri­vate secu­ri­ty indus­try is an essen­tial com­po­nent of the nation­al secu­ri­ty frame­work pro­vid­ing val­ue; includ­ing pro­tec­tion of access con­trol points, employ­ees, clients, com­mu­ni­ties, homes, and cor­po­rate assets; and indeed as pro­tec­tors of nation­al indus­tries.”

Look for major changes to the National Security land­scape, and again it may not be ben­e­fi­cial to the JCF or the Country in the long run.
We will come back to this point.

Attending the con­fer­ence on behalf of the Police Department was Deputy Commissioner of Police Clifford Blake. Addressing the con­fer­ence, Blake said.
“Jamaica is awash with guns.” 
Stronger sen­tences are need­ed to fight the demand for and use of the weapon in com­mit­ting var­i­ous crimes, for­mer Police Commissioner Owen Ellington, who pro­posed that there should be a manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tence for gun offens­es, I sup­port that idea.” “I remem­ber him say­ing that there should be a manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tence of 15 years.

For the record, this writer has been call­ing for manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tences for par­tic­u­lar cat­e­gories of vio­lent crimes before Ellington had his come to Jesus Moment.
Blake went on to cite the high attri­tion rate, lack of tech­nol­o­gy, and cor­rup­tion as issues affect­ing the Police’s abil­i­ty to do an effec­tive job.
An issue I have been harp­ing on for years.
The coun­try spends much mon­ey on train­ing a police offi­cer, but as soon as they are trained, they are look­ing for a way out.
This is not hap­pen­ing in a vac­u­um, almost 600 peo­ple do not walk away from their jobs in one agency each year with­out some­thing being rad­i­cal­ly wrong.
When we throw teach­ers, nurs­es and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als into the mix, our coun­try is expe­ri­enc­ing a seri­ous brain drain, but in a weird way, it is actu­al­ly pay­ing its cit­i­zens to leave by virtue of the lack of returns on its investments.
Blake spoke to the fact that oth­er coun­tries are lur­ing away Jamaican cops using bet­ter pay and work­ing con­di­tions, an issue I have writ­ten about for years. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​s​e​n​i​o​r​-​c​o​p​-​s​a​y​s​-​j​a​-​a​w​a​s​h​-​w​i​t​h​-​g​u​n​s​_​9​8​6​4​1​?​p​r​o​f​i​l​e​=​1​606

RED FLAG..

While the Deputy Commissioner of Police was list­ing the ills plagu­ing the Police Department, the Prime Minister was in total dis­re­gard mode, list­ing what he believes are bet­ter strate­gies for deal­ing with crime.
Shouldn’t the Prime Minister be atten­tive­ly lis­ten­ing to the DCP?
Does the Prime Minister under­stand that for this crime mon­ster to be cor­ralled he needs to pay atten­tion to what the experts say?

Or as a lit­tle birdie told me recent­ly there are moves afoot to remove some polic­ing func­tions to pri­vate secu­ri­ty companies.
How this will enhance the respect and respectabil­i­ty of the duly con­sti­tut­ed Police Department is yet to be discussed.
As Bruce Golding and his cronies cob­bled togeth­er the INDECOM Act with the PNP’s bless­ings and gave it to Jamaica with debil­i­tat­ing con­se­quences, so too will giv­ing pri­vate secu­ri­ty com­pa­nies polic­ing pow­ers and duties cre­ate con­flicts and con­fu­sion and fur­ther deplete and erode the rule of law on the Island.

Before the Bruce Golding Government cob­bled togeth­er the INDECOM law at the behest of spe­cial inter­est, I warned it would have dan­ger­ous con­se­quences, not just for ordi­nary civil­ians but for the police safe­ty and secu­ri­ty as well.
Holness’ state­ment quote” “The need for part­ner­ship between all lev­els of the secu­ri­ty sys­tem, includ­ing pri­vate secu­ri­ty guard com­pa­nies,” is an omi­nous state­ment of intent which seems to indi­cate that Andrew Holness intends to go down the same Rabbit-hole Golding took the nation with INDECOM.
Again fail­ing to give due respect and regard to the opin­ion of the peo­ple who actu­al­ly know what they are talk­ing about.

Enough mis­takes have been made fol­low­ing after ideas from peo­ple who have no busi­ness hav­ing a say in nation­al secu­ri­ty matters.
Any empha­sis or resources avail­able must be spent on upgrad­ing the JCF with a view to mak­ing it a pro­fes­sion­al twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry Police force.
Any resource divert­ed to pri­vate enti­ties under the guise of help­ing the fight against crime must be seen as yet anoth­er attempt to ren­der the Jamaica Constabulary fur­ther an even more impo­tent paper tiger than it already is.

Even as tourism con­tin­ue to show marked improve­ments in the Caribbean and par­tic­u­lar­ly in Jamaica , it is still a chal­lenge for small nations like CARICOM mem­ber states to tru­ly pull them­selves from the shack­les of pover­ty and pro­pel them­selves to first world status.

Two recent reports which had to do with the region has been less than com­pli­men­ta­ry , and could have far reach­ing con­se­quences not just for CARICOM but for indi­vid­ual mem­ber states like Jamaica.

.….….….….….….….….….…..

According to a new study pub­lished by prop­er­ty insur­ance group FM Global​.FM Global Resilience Index, which equal­ly weighs com­pos­ite mea­sure of three core resilience fac­tors: eco­nom­ic, risk qual­i­ty and the sup­ply chain — includ­ing cyber attacks, nat­ur­al haz­ards and sup­ply chain fail­ure — ranked Jamaica at 117 of 130 countries.

The index is based on data pro­vid­ed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Economic Forum and the World Bank.
The coun­try, which scored 19 marks by FM Global stan­dards, had an over­all eco­nom­ic rank of 124 of the list of coun­tries; con­sist­ing of scores of six for pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, 65.4 for polit­i­cal risk, 19.3 for oil inten­si­ty, and 65.6 for urban­iza­tion rate.

The scores result­ed in Jamaica being ranked the sec­ond most risky coun­try to invest in the Caribbean, after Haiti which was at the low­est posi­tion over­all on the list of 130 countries.

Jamaica was ranked just below the African republics of Guinea at 116 and Cameroon at 115, and one posi­tion ahead of Iran — ranked at 118 of the 130 coun­tries. (Jamaicaobserver​.com).

Additionally , in anoth­er report ..

The 15-nation Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty is angry at the United States for label­ing vir­tu­al­ly all mem­bers of the region­al trade bloc as mon­ey laun­der­ing juris­dic­tions and plans to mount a stiff lob­by­ing effort in Washington, its leader said Friday.CARICOM Secretary General Irwin La Rocque said the United States’s list­ing 14 mem­ber states in its 2016 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report could have dev­as­tat­ing effects on the region.

Most of the coun­tries have economies heav­i­ly depen­dent on tourism and finan­cial ser­vices such as off­shore bank­ing and eco­nom­ic cit­i­zen­ships. “I think these uni­lat­er­al black-list­ings are not help­ing any­thing,” he said, adding that “there ought to be some dis­cus­sion and trans­paren­cy on how these lists are arrived at.”

.….….….….….….….….….….….….

The United States is quite aware of the con­se­quences it’s char­ac­ter­i­za­tions have on small depen­dent states .
As such it behoove the United States to exer­cise cau­tion and due care in it’s characterizations.

Even as this writer endors­es some of the ini­ti­ates embarked on by the United States, (eg) seri­ous­ly tak­ing on Lotto scam­mers in Jamaica, and request­ing the extra­di­tion of Transnational crim­i­nals who seem­ing­ly are too big to be pros­e­cut­ed in Jamaica, we must insist on fairness .

Small states like Jamaica are total­ly depen­dent on the International Monetary Fund for their sur­vival. They hard­ly have the capac­i­ty to be International mon­ey laun­der­ing states to any degree that they would not be read­i­ly exposed.
Negatively label­ing them mon­ey laun­der­ing states does have seri­ous and debil­i­tat­ing con­se­quences on their abil­i­ties to extri­cate them­selves from the shack­les of lender agen­cies like the IMF and become sol­vent states.

Though it is incum­bent on each state to ensure that the rule of law is adhered to , many states do not have the resources to com­bat the scourge of drug deal­ing and oth­er crimes which pro­duces big bucks, and the ensu­ing mon­ey laun­der­ing schemes which result.
The United States with all it resources still strug­gle to deal with the emerg­ing chal­lenges posed by Drugs , cyber crimes and oth­er transna­tion­al threats.

Consequently the United States should stand ready to part­ner with Caribbean states to counter the scourge of crime .
A crime free Caribbean Community is in America’s National Security Interest.
In this case slap­ping a label of this sort on CARICOM does no one any good.

One of the tools used to erode the rule of law in Jamaica is demagoguery.
The Media, Criminal Rights activists, and oth­ers have used this tool rather effec­tive­ly to com­plete­ly turn the pop­u­la­tion against law enforce­ment over the last 30 years.
The nation’s teeth is now on edge from suck­ing that sour fruit.
Part of the dem­a­gog­ic approach has been to ridicule the sequence of events giv­en by Police in shoot­ing inci­dents. They do so by cast­ing doubt and cre­at­ing the impres­sion the events as out­lined were con­coct­ed by offi­cers, sole­ly to escape accountability.
From time to time police con­front armed crim­i­nals result­ing in some­one being shot, and no weapons are recovered.
That sce­nario has been a gift to the ene­mies of the rule of law who exploit these inci­dents to the fullest.

As a result, I wrote the fol­low­ing arti­cle below out­lin­ing some of the sce­nar­ios in which these events can and do occur.

How Terrain And Topography Affect Policing .….

As a con­se­quence of this sec­ond guess­ing an entire­ly new career genre has emerged against law enforce­ment, all sup­pos­ed­ly in sup­port of human rights, but which are instead cesspools of sup­port and com­fort to the Island’s killers and rapists.

As a for­mer police offi­cer in that ingrate incu­ba­tor, I have tried to shed some light on these issues with a view to bring­ing some truth and per­spec­tive to counter the lies and deceptions.
My attempts should not be con­strued to mean that there aren’t excep­tions to the rule.
They are cer­tain­ly not intend­ed to sug­gest that there are no crooked cops who step out­side the bound­aries of the law and shame their cho­sen profession.
Truth be told when I served I bare­ly tol­er­at­ed many of the cops with whom I worked, (that sen­ti­ment may have been mutu­al) and many years after I left, I am shocked at what I hear from some past and serv­ing members.
But that is true of any cho­sen pro­fes­sion, it has noth­ing to do with the pro­fes­sion, it is total­ly about the peo­ple who are in those disciplines.

I want to show­case two inci­dents which hap­pened on Tuesday which should add some per­spec­tive to my contention.

Constable Akeem McLean was shot and injured in the vicin­i­ty of Regent Street and Golden Heights, Denham Town.

Incident #1

The Police said McLean was a part of a team respond­ing to reports of explo­sions in the Race Course area about 2:10 am. Upon reach­ing the Metcalf Remand Centre, the offi­cers noticed men car­ry­ing out sus­pi­cious activ­i­ties but when they alight­ed from their vehi­cles to inves­ti­gate, they were shot at. The gun­fire was returned, and the men fled.
Anderson said McLean who was wear­ing a bal­lis­tic vest, was shot dur­ing the exchange. “The vest actu­al­ly cush­ioned the impact of the bul­let, but the frag­ments from the bul­let actu­al­ly inflict­ed the wound to his neck.”

So much for the lying dem­a­gog­ic vil­lage lawyers who have an opin­ion on everything.
This police con­sta­ble was almost killed, no weapon was recov­ered and as far as we know none of the assailants may have been injured.
Now if we flip the script a lit­tle and these offi­cers had come out of their vehi­cle guns blaz­ing, chances are Constable McLean would not have been shot and almost killed, a mere week after Constable Hanson was slaugh­tered on Constant Spring Road.
So let us imag­ine things a lit­tle bit fur­ther, what if one of the scum were hit and the oth­ers had fled leav­ing no weapons behind?

We all know what would have transpired!
Terrence Williams, the chief lying dem­a­gogue, would have called a press con­fer­ence to shed croc­o­dile tears about his con­cern for the shoot­ing of these malig­nant tumors.
There would have been much hoopla in the media and on social media about how the police are deranged lunatics.
But once it was the police who found them­selves on the busi­ness end of the gun it is crickets.…..Total silence.…

Incident#2

In anoth­er inci­dent on Tuesday, two men were fatal­ly shot by the police in a sec­tion of Arnett Gardens called Zimbabwe. Two guns — a rifle and a hand­gun — were seized fol­low­ing that shoot­ing, police said.
The two men remained uniden­ti­fied up to yesterday.
According to the police, a team was on patrol in the vicin­i­ty of Paradise Grove when the offi­cers were greet­ed with gun­fire. The law­men returned fire, and the men were shot.

The Police said it was the third attack on mem­bers of the police force in that area of the city in the past two weeks.

These two dirt­bags met their just due but just imag­ine if the police were shot at, returned fire, and their cronies had man­aged to scoop up those two weapons?
Yes, Terrence Williams and the bunch of leech­es who can­not cut it in the real world on their own with­out tax­pay­ers largess would have had a field day with this.

In sum­ma­tion let me say this, there is much that has been done over the decades to lead us to this point in Jamaica.
These actions have had a fer­til­iz­ing effect on crime, yet none has empow­ered crim­i­nals more than the work of Jamaicans for Justice, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Families against State Terrorism and oth­ers lead­ing to the cre­ation of INDECOM.
These attacks on our police offi­cers were even sub­tly called for by the for­mer head of the Government’s own pub­lic defend­er’s office.
Former head Earl Witter said that for police accounts of dead gun­men to be cred­i­ble there would have to be more dead cops.
That shock­ing state­ment came from a tax pay­er fund­ed bureaucrat.

In the mean­time, heav­i­ly armed gun­men are threat­en­ing to kill mem­bers of the JDF and JCF if they are seen in the low­er sec­tions of Maxfield Avenue.
In any oth­er nation in which these kinds of threats are made the Government would have sent in the best troops they have and bull­dozed the entire thing if nec­es­sary to root out this threat to the Nation.
In Jamaica, it is busi­ness as usual.
We also hear that key duties are on track to be removed from the Police and placed into the hands of pri­vate secu­ri­ty companies.
These events will invari­ably erode fur­ther what lit­tle effec­tive­ness the police has, cre­at­ing, even more, law­less­ness in the country.

I warn this Administration not to use any pub­lic resource to pay any secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny to do any duties which should fall under the nation’s police department.
Much dam­age has been done to our coun­try as a result of INDECOM it behoove the Government to gar­ner what­ev­er resources it can toward the mod­ern­iz­ing the legit­i­mate Police Agency of the country/
Unless of course, the end game is to destroy the JCF as part of a larg­er plan totally.

The vio­lence in Jamaica should give pause to every well-mean­ing per­son with any con­nec­tion to our country.
However one of the tragedies com­ing out of this wan­ton blood­shed is the fact that it can no longer be char­ac­ter­ized as just a high crime rate.

IT IS A WAR…

At the risk of being labeled alarmist, I respect­ful­ly point to the fact that at present rate we can no longer argue this is just crime.
Based on the raw num­ber of dead bod­ies our coun­try is in an unde­clared state of civ­il war.

Even more sig­nif­i­cant to the future of the coun­try is the killing of chil­dren, in what some would argue is col­lat­er­al damage.
Now we all know that as a mat­ter, of course, wars do pro­duce inno­cent dead, (col­lat­er­al damage).
What we should be con­cerned about how­ev­er is the killing of the nation’s chil­dren and the trau­ma which is being unleashed on count­less oth­ers as a consequence.

As a result of the killings and the fail­ings with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem the vio­lence has now tak­en on a cir­cu­lar direc­tion,( i.e.,) even when a killer is held account­able by the sys­tem, the penal­ty is so inad­e­quate that fam­i­lies and friends of the vic­tims feel they must take mat­ters into their own hands.
Not to men­tion that in most cas­es sur­viv­ing mem­bers of a fam­i­ly knows who their loved one’s killers are.
For the most part the vast major­i­ty of the nation’s mur­der­ers nev­er even get arrest­ed much less tried and con­vict­ed for their crimes.

Of the sev­en (7%) who do get con­vict­ed many are over­turned on appeal, and as you will see from the fol­low­ing sto­ry, even when they are not over­turned on appeal, they are turned loose back onto the streets in a few years even when con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal murder.

According to local Media:

The shoot­ing death of a 16-year-old Muschett High School stu­dent and her uncle in Cheesefield, St Catherine, ear­ly Sunday morn­ing has left her fam­i­ly and school com­mu­ni­ty severe­ly devastated.The deceased have been iden­ti­fied as 35-year-old Lerude Bartley of Fourth Street, Linstead, St Catherine, and his niece, Octavia Leslie of Deeside, Trelawny.

Bartley is said to have been released from prison last year after serv­ing a 15-year sen­tence for murder.
According to fam­i­ly mem­bers, Octavia, who was fond­ly called Tavia, her four sib­lings, and their par­ents, went to Linstead ear­ly Saturday morn­ing to attend her aun­t’s funer­al which was sched­uled for the fol­low­ing day.

After attend­ing the wake through­out Saturday night, dur­ing the wee hours of Sunday morn­ing, Octavia accom­pa­nied her uncle, who she was meet­ing for the sec­ond time, to the bor­der­ing Cheesefield com­mu­ni­ty where he walked home an elder­ly woman.
But tragedy struck while they were using a short­cut on their way back. They were both shot in the head by unknown assailants. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​o​b​s​e​r​v​e​r​-​w​e​s​t​-​f​r​o​n​t​-​p​a​g​e​/​d​o​u​b​l​e​-​g​r​i​e​f​-​f​a​m​i​l​y​-​s​c​h​o​o​l​-​c​o​m​m​u​n​i​t​y​-​m​o​u​r​n​-​k​i​l​l​i​n​g​-​o​f​-​1​6​-​y​-​o​-​s​t​u​d​e​n​t​_​9​8​4​0​8​?​p​r​o​f​i​l​e​=​1​606

On the face of it, every Jamaican should be com­plete­ly alarmed at the prospect that sim­ply walk­ing in a rur­al com­mu­ni­ty can get one mur­dered exe­cu­tion style.
That fact is par­tic­u­lar­ly chill­ing for some­one like me who hails from anoth­er rur­al St Catherine com­mu­ni­ty and knows the com­mu­ni­ty of Cheesfield quite well.

It is unnerv­ing to imag­ine that even in the most remote com­mu­ni­ties guns are a sta­ple for any­one who wants them.
I am not naïve to think that there is not some deep­er back sto­ry here, what is con­cern­ing to me is the idea that death can come so eas­i­ly even in the most remote community.

Could this dou­ble mur­der be a hit because the deceased Bartley him­self had killed and had spent time in prison for his crimes?
If I was inves­ti­gat­ing these homi­cides, you bet I would be look­ing at that angle for sure.
Yet if the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem had applied the appro­pri­ate penal­ty to Bartley for the crime of mur­der for which he was con­vict­ed he would be alive today.
And so would his niece…

Make no mis­take about it, I shed no tear for any­one who has killed anoth­er human being except in self-defense or in defense of another.
So there are no tears here for Mister Lerude Bartley.
I know I should for­give, yea, yea, it is up to the Lord God to for­give him for killing anoth­er person.
The Criminal jus­tice sys­tem failed every­one, includ­ing Lerude Bartley but more so it failed Octavia Leslie and by exten­sion all the stu­dents of Muschett High School.
This case is a clas­sic exam­ple of what I have been talk­ing about for years, these are vivid exam­ples of the not so obvi­ous con­se­quences of not keep­ing crim­i­nals in prison.

We are look­ing at the metas­ta­siz­ing of the vio­lence, some­thing I have been speak­ing to for some time now.
It’s like a cir­cu­lar fir­ing squad.
In a cir­cu­lar fir­ing squad, no one is safe.
Had the courts admin­is­tered the appro­pri­ate sen­tence to Lerude Bartley he would still be in jail and Tavia as she was affec­tion­ate­ly called, would still be alive.
She would have sung at her rel­a­tive’s funeral.
Now some­one will be singing at her’s even before she had a chance to live.
This is way too sad.….

On the sud­den pass­ing of Assistant Commissioner of Police Winchroy Budhoo ‚National Security Minister Robert Montague expressed con­do­lence on behalf of the Government and his min­istry to Assistant Commissioner Budhoo’s fam­i­ly, col­leagues, and friends.

Said Minister Montague…

“My thoughts and prayers are with them dur­ing this very dif­fi­cult time,” the min­is­ter said.

“The Ministry of National Security wants to once again under­score the impor­tant role that our police play in our coun­try.” “As Jamaicans we must not for­get that the free­dom and the sense of secu­ri­ty we enjoy are some­times achieved through our law enforce­ment offi­cers mak­ing enor­mous sac­ri­fices – often with­out much regard for self.
“We wish to assure ACP Budhoo’s imme­di­ate fam­i­ly of our sup­port as they go through this dif­fi­cult peri­od of grief and mourn­ing. We also ask that you take heart in know­ing that he lived well in ser­vice to this nation.” 
“On behalf of the entire law enforce­ment com­mu­ni­ty the min­istry thanks him for his ser­vice to the nation. We will work close­ly with the fam­i­ly in the days ahead to hon­or his mem­o­ry and main­tain his lega­cy.”

This medi­um has been crit­i­cal at times of this Minister when we feel it is warranted.
At the same time we also want to be fair in how we cri­tique the Minister as we always try to be when we cri­tique every­one else.
The Minister’s state­ment is one of the best I have per­son­al­ly seen any­where issued by a politi­cian at the pass­ing of a police officer .
Though ACP Budhoo did not die vio­lent­ly thank­ful­ly , the Minister’s response has been thought­ful, rea­soned yet inclu­sive of the con­tri­bu­tion police offi­cers make to society.
Thank you Minister Montague,

In an online poll conducted by the Jamaica Observer which included 1,175 respondents 50.2 per cent said that they were not confident in new Commissioner of Police, George Quallo, 49.8 per cent said that they were confident in his ability to successfully fight crime.

I don’t think this poll result require a PhD in psy­chol­o­gy to fig­ure out the thought process­es which led to the out­come of this poll.
According to some of the com­ments in the Observer, sev­er­al peo­ple expressed some of the same sen­ti­ments which I believe are rep­re­sent­ed in the poll results.
Said One person.:

“What did you expect.specially as its the same method of select­ing a com­mish from the ranks of the JCF which has not worked as the island suf­fers under the strain of criminal/​terrorists with no answers.and as the famous once said“keep doing the same thing over and over and over again.and expect a dif­fer­ent result.thats the def­i­n­i­tion of mad­ness”..

What Country in the world bring in for­eign­ers to head their secu­ri­ty apparatus?
None, Zero, Nada !!!!
But the poster’s com­ment was a syn­op­sis of a larg­er mind­set which brought Mark Shields and oth­ers from Britain to Jamaica to tell Jamaican Police how to Police Jamaica.
Oh sure ‚there is noth­ing wrong with using for­eign exper­tise, but plac­ing them in crit­i­cal posi­tions of pow­er over career natives is ridicu­lous and laughable .

Shields got a busi­ness and a bride from the deal, he did­n’t even both­er going back, why should he he is a god there.
Journalists run to him for his opin­ion on every­thing relat­ed to crime, to hell with the Jamaicans who came up through the ranks.
Never mind that when giv­en a chance to sit in a class­room with local cops these guys are left chok­ing on our dust.
Secondly Jamaican cops who leave the JCF and con­tin­ue in law enforce­ment careers in oth­er coun­tries rapid­ly become standouts.

If the peo­ple are still shack­led with the resid­ual chains of slav­ery and mass indoc­tri­na­tion how can they be expect­ed to sup­port even the best our coun­try has to offer?
Is it any won­der that over 600 peo­ple sim­ply walk away from the JCF each year?
Is there any won­der that coun­tries like Canada and the US are able to lure our nurs­es and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als away?”

No it’s not just about bet­ter pay, many Jamaicans do not want to live in any oth­er coun­try but our own .
If they are treat­ed right and appre­ci­at­ed, they are quite will­ing to stay and build Jamaica , they sim­ply need lead­ers who know how to moti­vate and lead.

Why would we expect a dif­fer­ent result from this poll however?
Jamaicans are reluc­tant to do any­thing to remove the mur­der­ers from their com­mu­ni­ties, choos­ing instead to point to the sins of the police.
Of course they also have faith in the low life politi­cians who give the youths guns to kill their neigh­bors from across the way.

They bow to the idiots who spend their time bang­ing on desks and hurl­ing insults at each oth­er in Gordon House,instead of updat­ing the laws so that they can have the req­ui­site deter­rent effect.
Instead of get­ting behind law enforce­ment to cre­ate the envi­ron­ment in which pros­per­i­ty can real­ly begin to become a real pos­si­bil­i­ty and not a jin­gle, they pro­tect the crim­i­nals with­in their con­stituen­cies, mak­ing law enforce­ment and the rule of law an alien to be feared and hated.

No, why would a peo­ple who wor­ship these men­tal midgets respect the life of accom­plish­ment and ded­i­ca­tion to ser­vice that a com­mis­sion­er George Quallo bring to the table.
He is not a for­eign­er , we all know how they wor­ship the for­eign goods at the expense of safe Jamaican foods .
We know how they love all things for­eign, why would they not want a for­eign­er to solve their problems?

Will be updat­ed as is appropriate.
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