The Jamaican people continue to be deceived by the very people they put in place to look out for their interest.
Someone said to me this morning that Jamaica may be too far gone. I could not concur or disagree as that is above my pay-grade. One thing is certain, it will be extremely difficult to turn around our country because of it’s lack of checks and balances ‚and a people who have for over fifty years being encouraged to break the laws by their own Government’s lethargy.

Governments are put in place to take care of the affairs of nations since the begin­ning of record­ed his­to­ry. The pri­ma­ry respon­si­bil­i­ty of nation’s lead­er­ship has been the secu­ri­ty of their people.
As time pro­gressed Governments evolved into tak­ing care of more of their cit­i­zens’ needs , though not at the expense of nation­al security.
The United States the World’s sec­ond largest democ­ra­cy (by pop­u­la­tion) des­ig­nates a large part of it’s annu­al bud­get to it’s National secu­ri­ty . That is a clear under­stand­ing of what Government’s main role is.

Government has a right to lead, not through decree or pro­nounce­ments, but through leg­is­la­tion on which con­sen­sus has been arrived at.
When Government lead through that process and fol­low the laws like every­one else , the cit­i­zen­ry fol­low . It is through those process­es that the Governed acqui­esces to the dic­tates of those who Govern.

If there is a per­cep­tion that music being pro­duced in prison is hav­ing neg­a­tive con­se­quences on the nation’s youth, the Government should be lead­ing the charge to ensure that-that does not happen.
Government fur­ther has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to ensure that there is noth­ing unto­ward hap­pen­ing in any of it’s arms which are against the greater good.

Even if record­ing is allowed as part of the reha­bil­i­ta­tive process of inmates there must be stan­dards which pre­cludes con­vict­ed felons (least of all mur­der­ers) from doing fur­ther harm to soci­ety through that sup­posed reha­bil­i­ta­tive process.
That’s com­mon sense lead­er­ship if a coun­try believes in the rule of law.
It goes with­out say­ing that the Government would be attuned to ensur­ing that the inter­est of hun­dreds of thou­sands of inno­cent young minds take prece­dent over the rights of con­vict­ed murderers.

NOT SO IN JAMAICA

According to the Jamaica Observer ‚state min­is­ter for nation­al secu­ri­ty, Senator Pearnel Charles Jnr, says he has asked a legal team and the Commissioner of Corrections Ina Hunter to pro­vide a clear under­stand­ing of the inter­pre­ta­tion of the laws and reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing the pro­duc­tion of music in max­i­mum secu­ri­ty prisons.

Charles, in the mean­time, said he is not in agree­ment with the recent sug­ges­tion by Hanna of the whole­sale ban­ning of the intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty of mur­der con­victs. “It’s a very sim­plis­tic view to say you’re con­vict­ed, and you’re mak­ing this impact, so we are going to sen­sor your music. Remember, some­times you may be the cre­ator of the music and may have sold the rights to your music. That is why we have to have a clear and cogent dis­cus­sion on sev­er­al issues: ban­ning somebody’s music because they are con­vict­ed, and ban­ning music that aris­es from unau­tho­rized record­ings (which) wouldn’t be ban­ning. That music is just ille­gal,” he said.

If there is a case where a con­vict­ed crim­i­nal sold his music to some­one else then the thing to do is to plug that gap with legislation.
Stop it from hap­pen­ing. It’s not too dif­fi­cult to pass a law which ensures that no con­vict­ed crim­i­nal may ben­e­fit from the pro­ceeds of any­thing he/​she does whilst incarcerated.

There has been much sup­port for this in Jamaica if social media respons­es on the issue can be used as a barometer.
But even more impor­tant­ly , the Government has a respon­si­bil­i­ty and a duty to pull the plug from any such record­ing as soon as there are alle­ga­tions that it is doing dam­age to society.

But this goes even fur­ther than sim­ply pulling the plug on the music of con­vict­ed felons. There should have been no mur­der misog­y­nist music being played on pub­lic air­waves in the first place.
What Pearnel Charles Jr’s, has shown by his state­ment, is that he is more con­cerned about pro­tect­ing the rights of con­vict­ed mur­der­ers to per­pet­u­ate and pro­mul­gate misog­y­nist, mur­der mad­ness, than to pro­tect the nations impres­sion­able children.

How will there ever be a turn-around of the chaos and law­less­ness in this coun­try when those elect­ed to lead have stri­dent­ly abdi­cat­ed their respon­si­bil­i­ty to do so?
Why would a junior Minister be ask­ing down to legal teams and the com­mis­sion­er of cor­rec­tions what the pro­to­cols are?
Disallow the damn prac­tice , period!

“We have to have a clear and cogent dis­cus­sion on sev­er­al issues: ban­ning somebody’s music because they are con­vict­ed, and ban­ning music that aris­es from unau­tho­rized record­ings (which) wouldn’t be ban­ning. That music is just ille­gal”. Said Charles a junior min­is­ter in the jus­tice min­istry and a lawyer.

You can­not make this up. This is the kind of lead­er­ship hap­pen­ing in our country.
Jamaica aver­ages over 100 mur­ders each month, many peo­ple won­der how it is that a coun­try which sells itself as a place where every­thing is all right, has been any­thing but.
Well there you have it , you deter­mine whether this is lead­er­ship or is it pan­der­ing of the worst order to the worst ele­ments in our country?
The thing which both­ers me is that he did it while pre­tend­ing that he wants to fol­low the law.

Terrence Williams the Commissioner of INDECOM is doing a tremen­dous dis­ser­vice to our coun­try he knows it, and he does­n’t care . For Terrence Williams it’s about blind ambi­tion. It’s about per­son­al aggrandizement.

For Williams it’s about his per­son­al career , his per­son­al lega­cy. If Carolyn Gomes can receive a National hon­or it’s just a mat­ter of time before he receives his.
You see Terrence Williams is loy­al to.……well, he is loy­al to Terrence Williams’ ego.

Williams served as Director of Public Prosecutions in the British Virgin Islands for a decade?
In an inter­view with the JamaicaObserver Williams unwit­ting­ly offered a win­dow into his soul.
“A lot of per­sons think when you go to a small­er Caribbean island all you do is sit under a coconut tree”.
(In ref­er­ence to his role as a pros­e­cu­tor Williams said).
That’s what I was doing and I was pret­ty hap­py with that, and then this came up. So this was unexpected.
(In ref­er­ence to the job as head of INDECOM)

So Terrence Williams the guy who was a deputy in the office of Director of Public Prosecution in Jamaica , who then went to the British vir­gin Island to work as a Prosecutor ‚and who was hap­py with his job there ‚just hap­pened to learn about the job open­ing as com­mis­sion­er of the yet to be formed Independent Commission of Investigations!

Did it real­ly just come up though?
If so how did that happen?
Of the hun­dreds of Lawyers on the Island of Jamaica there was no one suit­able for the job of Commissioner of the neo­phyte agency?
It’s strange because there is noth­ing in the law which stip­u­lates that the Commissioner of the agency has to be a lawyer.
So just on the face of that, the pool of peo­ple who could have got­ten the job just got expo­nen­tial­ly larger.
If Williams was serv­ing in anoth­er capac­i­ty in a for­eign coun­try, how could an open­ing sim­ply come up to him ?
Did he resign the job in the BVI pack up his things and go home then apply for the job?
Doesn’t seem to make sense to me!
If not , did he sub­mit an appli­ca­tion ? Were there oth­er appli­cants for the job? Did Terrence Williams go back to Jamaica to be inter­viewed for the job, or was the job sim­ply tai­lor made for him as an attack dog?Was he anoint­ed as such against the Nation’s law enforce­ment Agencies by Bruce Golding with the full acqui­es­cence of the PNP?

We can sus­pend real­i­ty, or we can take a slight­ly clos­er look to see whether Terrence Williams’ sto­ry hold water.
How naïve would we have to be to believe that Terrence Williams was hap­py in his job under the coconut tree in the BVI and the job of com­mis­sion­er of INDECOM just dropped from the coconut tree into his lap , or as he says “this came up”?

Never mind that Terrence Williams also want­ed the job of DPP in Jamaica, but Paula Llewellyn got that.
Ouch that had to hurt.
There’s no doubt that Williams’ many pub­li­cized fights with Ms Llewellyn after being made Commissioner of INDECOM has to do with sour grapes.

Lets also not for­get the lit­tle fact that JLP Senator Alexander (Alex) Williams who was at the time oppo­si­tion spokesman for jus­tice just hap­pen to be the broth­er of Terence Williams. Coincidence ? You decide !
With those under­stand­ings we get a slight­ly clear­er pic­ture of just how the job of INDECOM com­mis­sion­er” just came up” for Terrence Williams.
Alex Williams Terrence’s broth­er told the Media then “INDECOM was estab­lished main­ly as the ini­tia­tive of for­mer Prime Minister Bruce Golding and was giv­en strong sup­port by the then Opposition PNP.
If you still doubt that the two polit­i­cal par­ties on the Island are any­thing but two crime fam­i­lies you deserve them.

The ques­tion now remain ‘should this vin­dic­tive , over­ly ambi­tious, rapa­cious lit­tle man’s ego be allowed to con­tin­ue to cause untold inno­cent lives?
Look, we know Bruce Golding placed him in this posi­tion of pow­er . We also know that he did it with the crim­i­nal­ly com­plic­it PNP.
Of course the Police depart­ment was way out of hand with all of the things it’s mem­bers were engag­ing in.
But does any­one doubt for a moment that it was the decades of inter­fer­ence , neglect and crim­i­nal con­duct by mem­bers of both the PNP and JLP which caused the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of the Police Force?

CAMPAIGN OF DECEPTION HALF TRUTHS AND MISCONCEPTIONS DESIGNED TO POISON OPINIONS

Since being hand­ed the Job as head of INDECOM Terrence Williams has led a cam­paign of decep­tion, lies, and half truths, which can only be coun­tered with the con­clu­sion that he wants to poi­son the mind of the pub­lic against it’s law enforce­ment agencies.
Stunningly Williams have been able to accom­plish this feat with fright­en­ing alacrity and effec­tive­ness much to the detri­ment of cit­i­zens and police alike.

With Jamaica being a coun­try with a large illit­er­ate and semi lit­er­ate pop­u­la­tion it is not too dif­fi­cult to see just how Williams could be so suc­cess­ful in such a short peri­od of time.
Carolyn Gomes a Mulatto pedi­atric Doctor was able to do much dam­age before the facts caught up with her and she was forced to step aside.
Of course not before she received a National hon­or for tear­ing down the rule of law and cor­rupt­ing the youth.

Williams how­ev­er is not doing this by him­self we all know that Jamaicans don’t take too kind­ly to their black broth­ers and sis­ters pre­sent­ing them with facts.
So how do you get around that ?
You throw a Mulatto or white in the mix and the word is now gospel.

So adding for­mer Scotland Yard cop Hamish Campbell to INDECOM was sure to not only enhance the capa­bil­i­ty of the agency, it gives authen­tic­i­ty and cred­i­bil­i­ty to it. If the white man or the Mulatto woman say it’s so it must be so. Sadly we are still pro­grammed that way.

Terrence Williams flanked by Hamish Campbell told reporters at his office a few days ago that 19 peo­ple were shot by police since the start of the year who did not have guns.
A slick sleigh of hand if your intent is to deceive. A slick sleigh of hand if you know the dimwit reporters are not going to ask how many offi­cers have been charged as a result of these actions which clear­ly has to be crim­i­nal right?

What nei­ther Terrence Williams nor Hamish Campbell both­ered to state was that there are no charges because the police offi­cers act­ed lawfully.
What these two ene­mies of the state does not say is that police offi­cers are total­ly jus­ti­fied under the law in using lethal force to neu­tral­ize threats to their lives or the lives of others.

Literally every­thing can be used as a weapon by an offend­er intent on caus­ing bod­i­ly harm. An offi­cer is under no oblig­a­tion to wait to be injured or killed before respond­ing to that threat.
July 14^th 2015 22-year-old Constable Curtis Lewis sig­naled a motor­cy­clist to stop . The dri­ver refused ram­ming Lewis instead rip­ping his leg from his body, killing him.
The young offi­cer’s leg was recov­ered over twen­ty five feet away from where he was run over.
At the time of this tragedy Superintendent Beau Rigabie described Constable Lewis as a mod­el cop.“He was very pro­fes­sion­al and thor­ough. Words are insuf­fi­cient to describe him. He was a very, very, very good cop.”

Had con­sta­ble Lewis pulled his ser­vice weapon and stopped the threat Terrence Williams would have been on National Television blast­ing the young offi­cer for killing an unarmed motorcyclist.
Constable Lewis unfor­tu­nate­ly was not a cop cut from the same cloth from which I was cut. As long as you are legal­ly and moral­ly jus­ti­fied , neu­tral­ize that threat.
A good cop knows and under­stand when to end that threat. Poor Constable Lewis was a good human being , that does not always trans­late into a good cop.

My col­league Constable Sieveright was the only stu­dent con­sta­ble to take his bible with him to the Academy. A nicer, qui­eter per­son there hard­ly was.
That nice­ness caused him to be the first offi­cer from our batch to be killed. He died on the Mandela Highway his stom­ach filled with bul­lets from a scum­bag in a taxi-cab.

Drive a car at a cop and he has a right to open fire into the vehi­cle to save his or his col­leagues lives or any oth­er lives which may be imper­iled as a consequence.
Each case rests on it’s own indi­vid­ual set of circumstances.
Those are the facts the lying decep­tive lit­tle weasel Terrence Williams just hap­pen to leave out of his narrative.

It’s real easy to sell that to a cop hat­ing media and a coun­try which is large­ly cor­rupt and pop­u­lat­ed with a large per­cent­age of hus­tlers, thieves, rapists and murderers.
In this envi­ron­ment of the blind, the one eyed deceiv­er Terrence Williams is King.

UPDATED TO VALIDATE THE RECORD AS THIS MEDIUM HAS KEPT UP THE DRUM BEAT ON THIS ISSUE..
http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​n​e​w​s​/​2​0​1​6​1​0​2​6​/​i​n​d​e​c​o​m​-​b​o​s​s​-​p​r​o​b​l​e​m​-​d​e​p​u​t​y​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​c​o​m​m​i​s​s​i​o​n​e​r​-​t​e​l​l​s​-​p​a​r​l​i​a​m​ent

You almost feel like here we go again.Terrence Williams the Commissioner of (INDECOM) pointed out that his Agency is worried about the number of police fatal shootings for the months of January and February.

Terrence Williams told the Media gath­ered at a Press con­fer­ence at his Dumfries Road Office that he was wor­ried about the num­ber of peo­ple killed so far this year by police.
Williams released sta­tis­tics which indi­cat­ed that 19 peo­ple were shot and killed by the police in January, while anoth­er 12 were shot and killed in February.
Assistant (inde­com) Commissioner Hamish Campbell said January’s fatal­i­ties rep­re­sent­ed a 55 per cent increase over last year, which saw only sev­en fatal shoot­ings by the police. Another 11 peo­ple, Campbell said, were also shot and injured dur­ing the first two months of the year.

There was no men­tion about the height­ened lev­els of abduc­tions, rapes, and mur­der of lit­tle girls and young women , and every­one else ‚as well as the gen­er­al sense of law­less­ness sweep­ing the Island
There was no men­tion of the Police offi­cers killed in the line of duty at the hands of the cal­lous killers who kill at will.
There was no men­tion of the senior police sergeant who was killed in the Portmore area just days ago.
There was no men­tion of the propen­si­ty of Jamaicans to shoot at police offi­cers, and there was cer­tain­ly no men­tion of the sophis­ti­cat­ed weapon­ry these punks have in their possessions.
What Terrence Williams and his trea­so­nous anti Jamaica cabal are con­cerned about are dead criminals.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​e​r​r​e​n​c​e​-​w​i​l​l​i​a​m​s​-​n​o​t​-​i​n​v​e​s​t​i​g​a​t​i​n​g​-​d​i​r​t​y​-​c​o​p​s​-​s​e​l​f​-​p​r​o​m​o​t​i​o​n​-​g​r​a​n​d​s​t​a​n​d​i​n​g​-​s​m​e​ar/
HERE ARE THE FACTS
Terrence Williams has been giv­en immense inves­tiga­tive pow­ers under the ill con­ceived (INDECOM) Act.
Those pow­ers include, but are not con­fined to, the pow­er to arrest police offices, mem­bers of the mil­i­tary and cor­rec­tions depart­ments in the event there is evi­dence of wrong­do­ing on their part.
Despite those Powers much of what Terrence Williams have been able to accom­plish has been Media whor­ing and grandiose self promotion.
Not much else, by it’s own reporting(indecom) has been forced to admit that the vast major­i­ty of com­plaints it has inves­ti­gat­ed involv­ing the police , the police have been found to have act­ed pro­fes­sion­al­ly and lawfully.

It is a trag­ic state of affairs when tax pay­ers funds are used to finance witch hunts of secu­ri­ty personnel.
Even more trag­ic is the fact that high­er inci­dences of police shoot­ing crim­i­nals is sold as evi­dence of police wrong doing rather than a need for alarm at the near civ­il war sta­tus of the country.
That is the twist­ed log­ic Terrence Williams, Hamish Campbell the British slave mas­ter, and (inde­com), has engaged in since it’s inception.

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

It has become clear then that we have to see (inde­com) ‚Terrence Williams, and Hamish Campbell for what they tru­ly are.Agents against the Jamaican peo­ple.
Inevitably Jamaica will have to ask itself whether (inde­com) serves it’s inter­est or that of Williams’ for­eign han­dlers who have an inter­est in Jamaica’s con­tin­ued beg­gar status.
Certainly this can­not be out­side the scope of the com­pre­hen­sion of the Island’s leadership.

Jamaica is kept in a state of per­pet­u­al pover­ty which cre­ates depen­den­cy. Out of that pover­ty and depen­den­cy crime ger­mi­nate and metastasize.
Like an epi­dem­ic crime takes on new life as a virus does giv­en the right con­di­tions. If an anti­dote is not employed in a time­ly and deci­sive man­ner, giv­en those same cir­cum­stances that epi­dem­ic quick­ly evolve into a full blown pandemic.

Such has the virus of crime in Jamaica been allowed to thrive . In fact the polit­i­cal class which dou­bles as the crim­i­nal class has used their perch­es of pow­er to usurp the rule of law, cre­at­ing the con­di­tions which exist today .

As Michael Manley and Edward Seaga and their cabal of crim­i­nals did in the 1970’, our coun­try was turned into a ver­i­ta­ble war zone through the process of balka­niza­tion and the pro­lif­er­a­tion of guns.

Percival James Patterson and Portia Simpson Miller also prof­it­ed from the same kind of pol­i­tics . Through encour­age­ment, nur­tur­ing and enhance­ment of Garrison Dons and the dec­i­ma­tion of the Police department.
As a result it was an easy coup de gras for Bruce Golding to unleash his brand of destruc­tion on the country.
No not his defense of Christopher Coke . I“m talk­ing about his gift of (inde­com) to the coun­try, and now nur­tured by Andrew Holness.

At a time when a Member of Parliament is being threat­ened for dar­ing to speak out on pol­i­cy . At a time when Women and chil­dren are being bru­tal­ly raped and mur­dered . At a time when there is no com­punc­tion about killing police offi­cers , not to men­tion the near take over of the Jamaican state by crim­i­nals in 2010, we have lead­ers who are more inter­est­ed in hold­ing state pow­er than doing whats right.

I know it’s a stretch to appeal to the abil­i­ty of much of our peo­ple to do sim­ple reasoning…But I have to try.

CONSIDER THIS.…

Lets con­sid­er that Britain col­o­nized our land , enslaved our peo­ple for over four hun­dred years, through which they slaugh­tered untold millions.
Then Consider that at it’s ear­li­est con­ve­nience (1962), broke and irrel­e­vant , it’s for­mer empire a thing of the past ‚Britain cut Jamaica loose with noth­ing with which to help our­selves. (We stu­pid­ly refer to this peri­od as the time we gained independence).
Fast for­ward to Present day, and it’s Trojan Horse Prison deal which would have seen hun­dreds of crim­i­nals dumped on Jamaica, many of whom have nev­er been to Jamaica
Considering all of the oth­er tri­fling things England has done in recent times with the dis­tinct objec­tive of hurt­ing Jamaica and Jamaicans, why would any­one believe they have our inter­est at heart”

THINK PEOPLE 

If Britain was seri­ous about help­ing local law enforce­ment and the rule of law in Jamaica, would­n’t that coun­try help train our detec­tives in Forensics and oth­er areas?
Has it occurred to any­one , least of all the shit for brains so called lead­ers on the Island that there is some­thing fishy about their will­ing­ness to help with tying the hands of our police vis-a-vis (inde­com) , while they do not give a shit about how many inno­cents gets killed each year.

HERE ARE A FEW FACTS

In the entire 20 bor­oughs of London com­bined, there are less mur­ders com­mit­ted each year than are com­mit­ted in a sin­gle month in St James Jamaica.
Despite these low homi­cide num­bers, England wants to dump it’s trou­bled Prisoners on our country.
Just this week one mem­ber of the British Parliament exco­ri­at­ed Jamaica for refus­ing to accept People who com­mit­ted crimes in England back into our country..
So they don’t want any crime in their coun­try but they are quite will­ing to help fund (inde­com) and send per­son­nel al la Hamish Campbell to help.
You dum­b­ass shit for brains politi­cians .…You believe this is good because your ass­es are where your heads ought to be.

HOW CRIME ENSURES THAT JAMAICA WILL PERPETUALLY BE A BEGGAR NATION…

There is no need to rehash the sta­tis­tics which shows just how sig­nif­i­cant­ly crime impov­er­ish­es nations.
It’s absolute­ly no won­der that there are no nations which are plagued with unchecked vio­lent crimes that are pros­per­ous nations.
Zero !!!
So with Jamaica aver­ag­ing approx­i­mate­ly 1600 homi­cides annu­al­ly and the chances of get­ting one’s head blown off sim­ply by being in the coun­try (one in around 30,000 ) is there any won­der that the Mighty British Colonial mas­ters would want the dumb sub­jects to con­tin­ue wal­low­ing in poverty?

They under­stand that pover­ty breeds crime/​crime breeds pover­ty, who would they lend mon­ey to if we were final­ly able to get our act togeth­er, huh ..?
I can­not hear you, you smart ass politi­cians and oth­er dumb as fuck trolls who can­not see fur­ther than your stu­pid noses.
You see Bruce Golding was hap­py to get their help and advise with (inde­com), sure why not? Tying the hands of the police is good for business!

He just got a lit­tle too big for his britch­es when he said there would be no Gays in his cab­i­net to a British Reporter.
They showed him real quick whose cab­i­net it real­ly was. Ha ha ha, Poor Portia still believes she won that elec­tion after they kicked Golding out.
No crit­i­cal think­ing.. And the rest of you thought Golding’s demise was about his refusal to hon­or the extra­di­tion request.
Which came first, the hen or the egg..?
That anti Gay com­ment was the end for him only he did­n’t know it. The Extradition request was mere­ly the con­duit for his departure.
Refuse and you go down in the eyes of the world. Acquiesce and you have the West Kingston pow­er base yanked from under you.
Check mate !
We all know how that sto­ry ended.

It’s gonna be all up to the peo­ple to throw (inde­com) out, but if Transparency International’s assess­ment of our coun­try is to be believed there is not much chance of that happening.
More that 80% cor­rupt, not much chance that the 20% will be able to prevail.
That’s it in a nutshell.

WITH 31 peo­ple killed by the police just two months into 2017, the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) says it is wor­ried that the coun­try could record more than 200 such killings for the year. According to sta­tis­tics released yes­ter­day by INDECOM dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at its offices on Dumfries Road in Kingston, 19 peo­ple were shot and killed by the police in January, while anoth­er 12 were shot and killed in February.

Assistant INDECOM Commissioner Hamish Campbell said January’s fatal­i­ties rep­re­sent­ed a 55 per cent increase over last year, which saw only sev­en fatal shoot­ings by the police. Another 11 peo­ple, Campbell said, were also shot and injured dur­ing the first two months of the year.

WITH 31 peo­ple killed by the police just two months into 2017, the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) says it is wor­ried that the coun­try could record more than 200 such killings for the year. According to sta­tis­tics released yes­ter­day by INDECOM dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at its offices on Dumfries Road in Kingston, 19 peo­ple were shot and killed by the police in January, while anoth­er 12 were shot and killed in February.

Assistant INDECOM Commissioner Hamish Campbell said January’s fatal­i­ties rep­re­sent­ed a 55 per cent increase over last year, which saw only sev­en fatal shoot­ings by the police. Another 11 peo­ple, Campbell said, were also shot and injured dur­ing the first two months of the year. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​I​N​D​E​C​O​M​-​w​o​r​r​i​e​d​-​a​b​o​u​t​-​f​a​t​a​l​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​s​h​o​o​t​i​n​g​s​-​f​o​r​-​f​i​r​s​t​-​t​w​o​-​m​o​n​t​h​s​_​9​0​960

One of the reasons Jamaicans are so predisposed to using violence as a conflict resolution mechanism is our inability to do deductive reasoning.
Now I know this will draw howls of condemnation from the opinion police who will tell me I cannot make a blanket statement about a whole country.
To those I say I spent 31 years of my life living in Jamaica and I still interact with Jamaicans every day, I have that right.

There is no greater barom­e­ter for mea­sur­ing the rot and decay which has infect­ed Jamaica than the com­ments direct­ed At Lisa Hanna the for­mer Minister of Youth in the past People’s National Party Administration and mem­ber of par­lia­ment for St. Ann South Eastern.

This writer and this medi­um stand solid­ly beside Lisa Hanna on her posi­tion that degen­er­a­tive music should not be played on Radios or on Television.
Ms. Hanna has been exco­ri­at­ed and abused ver­bal­ly for dar­ing to speak to some­thing many in her own par­ty has not spo­ken to , includ­ing the leader of her par­ty and for­mer Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller.

Not only has Ms Hanna been ver­bal­ly assault­ed, she has report­ed to the police that the degen­er­a­tive cretins who hero wor­ship DJ Adidja Palmer (Vybes Kartel) are threat­en­ing her life.
Understandably peo­ple who dare to have an opin­ion out­side the nar­row pri­mal world­view of the semi-lit­er­ate mass­es are going to become a tar­get of their venom.
As an opin­ion writer I have cer­tain­ly had my share of vapid push-back and even death threats direct­ed at me.

None of that non­sense has ever caused me to lose any sleep.
In the first instance peo­ple can take your life they can­not kill your ideas.
Secondly many of those who make threats from the obscu­ri­ty of anonymi­ty would­n’t dare speak that garbage to my face.

Nevertheless I was real­ly impressed with Lisa Hanna’s response to her detrac­tors whose only response to intel­li­gent dis­course are threats of violence.
Responding to the death threats Ms Hanna said this:

“When it comes to women’s, and espe­cial­ly children’s rights, I speak out with­out fear of any reprisal,” “I pray that all Jamaicans who val­ue com­mon decen­cy will find the courage to push back against this new nor­mal and defend Jamaica’s true cul­ture. If we lose this bat­tle, how­ev­er unpop­u­lar the bat­tle or its choos­ing may be, we will have lost Jamaica.”

We are pre­cip­i­tous­ly close to los­ing Jamaica I am afraid , so even as I stand with Hanna on this issue she has been part of an Administration which has done much dam­age to the rule of law in our country.
Nevertheless as a Jamaican I refuse to allow par­ti­san polit­i­cal views to col­or my reac­tion to whats hap­pen­ing on this issue.

The Jamaican Prime Minister has all but abdi­cat­ed his respon­si­bil­i­ty on crime by (1) announc­ing some pin-prick mea­sures which are not worth the paper they are writ­ten on ‚and (2) By announc­ing that he will not be allow­ing the Police to go out and aggres­sive­ly do their jobs.

Lets not lose sight of the fact that a Government’s pri­ma­ry role is the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of it’s citizens.
It must be on that basis and that basis only, must any judge­ment of the Prime Minister’s effi­ca­cy be judged.
Clearly Holness has decid­ed that hold­ing and solid­i­fy­ing pow­er is more impor­tant that break­ing the back of the epi­dem­ic of mur­der and rape of inno­cent chil­dren , women and the most vul­ner­a­ble with­ing the society.

Without attempt­ing to speak for Ms Hanna who is quite capa­ble of speak­ing for her­self, here are a few facts .
There is no ques­tion that Adidja Palmer is a tal­ent­ed disc jock­ey , I say that because many of the com­ments around this issue are that peo­ple are envi­ous of the artiste.
Of course Like I said ini­tial­ly, those are knee-jerk respons­es from those who can­not artic­u­late an intel­lec­tu­al or rea­soned response.

That said, this dis­cus­sion has less to do with Vybes Kartel and more to do with the con­tent of his work.
Now there are those who say that Palmer is not the only artiste to record music from behind bars.
True . But regard­less of local­i­ty, regard­less of geog­ra­phy, when­ev­er an artiste, a Writer or any­one else, is allowed to con­tin­ue their trade or even start to do so from behind bars, it is because the con­tent they are releas­ing is one of mea cul­pa and reform.
“It can­not be music made by a con­vict­ed mur­der­er which con­tin­ue to spew degen­er­a­tive invec­tive which cor­rupt the minds of the young and impressionable.

A con­vict so priv­i­leged under­stands he/​she is allowed to do so as part of his/​her resti­tu­tion to society.
It does not include under any cir­cum­stances a sce­nario in which said artiste gets to con­tin­ue doing harm to society.

Before we deal with all of that we must explain one thing.
A cit­i­zen who com­mits a crime and has been law­ful­ly con­vict­ed in a court of law, has by def­i­n­i­tion of that con­vic­tion sur­ren­dered many of his/​her rights.
There is a sim­ple way to avoid los­ing ones rights in that way.
Do not com­mit crimes.

The fact that Vybes Kartel’s music is play­ing on radio and tele­vi­sion is not a prob­lem which should be laid at the feet of Kartel.
It’ is a sear­ing indict­ment of the cor­rupt nature of the agen­cies of Government and the crim­i­nal­ly com­plic­it nature of our coun­try’s lead­ers who lack the char­ac­ter and moral for­ti­tude to shout down cor­rup­tion and crime in all it’s forms.

This ker­fuf­fle would be a good time for Andrew Holness, in the process of bi-par­ti­san­ship, to stand beside Lisa Hanna , effec­tive­ly throw­ing the pow­er of his office in a push-back against the forces of anarchy.
Of course the urge to gain trac­tion and score cheap polit­i­cal points are far more impor­tant than show­ing a uni­fied front against degen­er­a­tive behavior.
Many of the com­ments on this issue are absolute­ly wor­thy of dis­cus­sion , even though at their core they lack cer­tain basic understandings.
Sure Kartel did not car­ry a record­ing stu­dio with him to prison , it is naïve to make that con­tention at a time when an artiste can voice lyrics on a cel­lu­lar device , save the record­ed lyrics onto a data card and send it out to be worked onto a tract and ulti­mate­ly to be distributed.

Despite this there has been report­ing in some Jamaican medi­ums on November 16^th of last year that Kartel was removed from the Horizon Remand cen­ter to the Tower street Prison.
Some have insist­ed that he was moved in order to facil­i­tate his abil­i­ty to con­tin­ue record­ing . Others have stri­dent­ly argued that his music which has con­tin­ued to dom­i­nate local air­waves were record­ed before his incarceration.
As far as I know there are no laws which pre­cludes a vis­cous con­vict­ed mur­der­er from record­ing after his incar­cer­a­tion. But com­mon sense ‚and com­mon decen­cy on the part of Jamaican author­i­ties would have pre­vailed , pre­vent­ing vio­lent mur­der and misog­y­nist lyrics from invad­ing pub­lic air­waves, and cer­tain­ly be dead sure that no mur­der­er could con­tin­ue to do so.

This is big­ger than Vybes Kartel or any oth­er con­vict , so to the die hard legions of Kartel fanat­ics , we hear you and to some degree your insis­tence that this was hap­pen­ing before Kartel are indeed true..
But even as we con­cede your point you must sur­ren­der the notion that a con­vict, any con­vict , have the same God-giv­en or con­sti­tu­tion­al right enjoyed before conviction.
You must divest your­selves of that ridicu­lous notion.

Jamaica is the way it is because of weak-kneed lead­er­ship and in many cas­es lead­er­ship which is indis­tin­guish­able from the crim­i­nals in the garrisons.
Many Jamaicans includ­ing Kartel’s legion of fanat­ics do trav­el to oth­er countries.
When they do they obey the laws of those host nations. Those who don’t gets kicked out.

They end up back in Jamaica, a place where they are allowed to pro­mul­gate and per­pet­u­ate anarchy,mayhem and murder.
Successive Administrations of both major polit­i­cal par­ties, includ­ing the present one , have con­sis­tent­ly refused to remove their hands from med­dling in law enforcement.
In fact it is rea­son­able to argue that they have active­ly enhanced the process­es which allow for the astro­nom­i­cal crime rate and the law­less­ness which exist today.
Both by actions they take and in some cas­es actions they refuse to take.

Bob Cameron PhD in Criminal Justice from Walden University wrote.
It’s actu­al­ly prob­a­bly not a good idea to put peo­ple togeth­er in a prison, but our options for pun­ish­ment are fair­ly lim­it­ed. Actually, pris­ons are an improve­ment over ear­ly pun­ish­ments that involved pri­mar­i­ly putting peo­ple to death for any­thing and every­thing (see the Code of Hammurabi for some fun details about that). 
The use of pris­ons has changed con­sid­er­ably over the years, but they are essen­tial­ly the same as they’ve always been in terms of being grad­u­ate schools of crime. Placing crim­i­nal­ly-mind­ed folks with oth­ers who share the same world­view can be very coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. But, there are impor­tant rea­sons that we con­tin­ue to use pris­ons, and there are some emerg­ing ways to reduce the risk of recidi­vism among incar­cer­at­ed offenders.
First, it’s impor­tant to under­stand that prison is not all about chang­ing peo­ple’s behav­ior, con­trary to pop­u­lar belief. There are actu­al­ly five gen­er­al­ly accept­ed goals of sen­tenc­ing (ret­ri­bu­tion, deter­rence, inca­pac­i­ta­tion, restora­tion, and reha­bil­i­ta­tion) the first three of which are accom­plished pri­mar­i­ly through incarceration.

Murderers are sent to prison because some soci­eties are not allowed to kill them. This is gen­er­al­ly so in some lib­er­al soci­eties here in the west­ern world.
For sev­er­al rea­sons some log­i­cal, many west­ern nations have declared a mora­to­ri­um on killing murderers.
The default process then is to incar­cer­ate no mat­ter the clar­i­ty of the evi­dence, no mat­ter the heinous nature of the killings.
Fine , so we alter­na­tive­ly and stu­pid­ly embark on an expen­sive process of incar­cer­at­ing mur­der­ers, regard­less of the grue­some nature of their crimes, regard­less of the amount of inno­cent lives they extinguished.

We do so as soci­eties because we have acqui­esced to the most lib­er­al view­points. We have bowed to those who osten­si­bly places soci­ety at a dou­ble disadvantage.
(1) From the harm done as a result of the killing of an inno­cent mem­ber of soci­ety and (2) forc­ing soci­ety to pay for the care of that mur­der­er for as long as he/​she lives.

It is that crim­i­nal cod­dling point of view which brings us to hav­ing to engage in a con­ver­sa­tion of this kind where those with the most crim­i­nal­ly sup­port­ing view points push­es the enve­lope on what fur­ther accom­mo­da­tions and crea­ture com­forts may be giv­en to con­vict­ed murderers.

Convicted crim­i­nals have no right to record music. They may do so con­sis­tent with the nation’s laws and rules gov­ern­ing indi­vid­ual penal systems.
There are many state­ments made on this issue to the effect that peo­ple should be allowed to prac­tice their craft whilst incarcerated.
That is a mat­ter for respec­tive leg­is­la­tures , yet I would not be sur­prised that some­thing as left lean­ing as this would become law in a place like Jamaica.

In oth­er coun­tries what­ev­er a pris­on­er gets out­side food, health­care and hous­ing has to be earned . This means that they are priv­i­leges not rights. In fact in many nations pris­on­ers are forced to work to earn their most basic keep, that includes the food they eat and oth­er costs accu­mu­lat­ed from hous­ing and car­ing for them.
Most impor­tant­ly, in the event a par­tic­u­lar con­vict has ‚through good behav­ior earned a priv­i­lege, say to record music, those priv­i­leges would be con­tin­gent with cer­tain pre­de­ter­mined cri­te­ria that good qual­i­ty-con­tent be adhered to.
News flash to the peo­ple who say it is cen­sor­ship. When you are a con­vict­ed crim­i­nal every­thing you do is censored.
Where,when and if you are allowed to sleep, eat and yes ‚where and when you shit.
Where do you believe your right to make or release music stand on that totem pole?

The ques­tion for the Jamaican Government is how much longer will it allow the tail to wag the dog?
This Prime Minister has had a year to detail with clar­i­ty, a path which out­lines with clear speci­fici­ty the Administration’s plan to get rid of crime.
To date there has not been a cogent or spe­cif­ic out­line which one could look at and rea­son­ably con­clude that the admin­is­tra­tion is seri­ous about crime.

Instead, what we have are band-aid approach­es and a bunch of Tom-fool­ery com­ing from the Prime Minister and even more so the Minister of National Security .
Be it under­stood that the Primary func­tion of any Government is the utmost safe­ty of it’s citizens.
How could this Administration come to Government with­out a leg­isla­tive agen­da which when enact­ed would imme­di­ate­ly bend the arc of crime, bring respect back for our insti­tu­tions and a sense that anar­chy would not be tolerated.
Out of that Agenda would emerge an econ­o­my where peo­ple in the dias­po­ra are con­vinced to return to invest ‚con­sumer con­fi­dence is up and for­eign investors bring in big mon­ey for invest­ment opportunities.
That is how an econ­o­my is built.

The Prime Minister is sad­ly delud­ed in believ­ing that his so called growth agen­da can be accom­plished if he adamant­ly refus­es to take a stand against crime. Nothing he has done on crime dif­fer­en­ti­ates his admin­is­tra­tion from the past administration.

Sooner or lat­er there will be change , whether the Prime Minister believes this or not is real­ly not up for debate any longer .
Jamaica will not be allowed to have a sit­u­a­tion in which almost 1600 peo­ple are mur­dered each year. Countless amounts of women and young girls raped and sodom­ized, and crim­i­nals do pret­ty much what they please because the lead­er­ship is too con­sumed with it’s own abil­i­ty to hold onto power .

Recently Prime Minister Andrew Holness told young ladies quote “stop the dag­ger­ing.”
The Prime Minister, clear­ly con­cerned about the high mur­der sta­tis­tics and the numer­ous cas­es of assaults and mur­der of teenage girls and women, sought to offer some degree of guidance.

“The guys who are doing this ‘Daggering’ dance, they are cre­ative, but they need to under­stand that what they are pro­ject­ing into the minds of our chil­dren is that vio­lence is accept­able. And then that becomes the pro­jec­tion of Jamaica over­seas that we are a vio­lent peo­ple. And, then, you have a dis­pute, and the only way to resolve the con­flict is what you have been taught com­ing up for years. Box him down! Stab him up!” Holness warned.
 “We have to stop this. The new dance that has evolved now… I don’t have noth­ing against the cul­ture… I am a big reg­gae fan, and I lis­ten to dance­hall. And, I tell you some­thing, we can­not allow vio­lence to take away our true cul­ture, and that is being pro­ject­ed as the cul­ture of Jamaica. We must stand up, talk to the enter­tain­ers, talk to the pro­mot­ers”.

Immediately after mak­ing the state­ments a pha­lanx of anar­chist unleashed an onslaught of out­cry against the Prime Minister with a vari­ety of ver­bal assaults.
One wrote that the Prime Minister should go fix the econ­o­my and leave dance hall alone.
Apparently, the men­tal midget does not under­stand that the Prime Minister has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to lead in all aspects of nation­al life.

He igno­rant­ly assailed the Prime Minister total­ly unmind­ful, or con­ver­sant of the fact that there can be no real eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty in this bloody car­nage which has tak­en over our country.

GOONS AND ANARCHISTS SHAPING POLICY…

As if assail­ing the Prime Minister was not enough, the angry mind­less trolls who can see no fur­ther than their base desire to fill their bel­lies with food and wine then engage in ani­mal sex are out for the blood of Lisa Hanna.
Lisa Hanna is the for­mer Minister of Youth in the past Administration and mem­ber of Parliament for St. Ann South East.

Ms Hanna recent­ly called for the ban­ning from the air­waves, some music of Imprisoned DJ Adiijah Palmer O/​c Vybes Kartel she con­sid­ers improper .
It did not take long for the idol­a­trous vul­tures to begin cir­cling, wait­ing to pluck the flesh from her for dar­ing to speak out against their God, A blast­ed con­vict­ed mur­der­ing scum.
In addi­tion to the mind­less trite com­ments against Ms Hanna, the Police are report­ing that some of the hea­thens are actu­al­ly threat­en­ing her life .

Lets begin by say­ing that con­vict­ed mur­der­er Adijjah Palmer have no right to record music as an incar­cer­at­ed felon.
Allowing a con­vict­ed Murderer to con­tin­ue to live on the inside as he did out­side is a shock­ing indict­ment of the endem­ic cor­rup­tion and crim­i­nal­ly com­plic­it nature of our Government structures .
It turns the entire con­cept of puni­tive incar­cer­a­tion on it’s head.
Every Jamaican have the right to speak out about what con­tent is allowed to come out of the pub­lic air­waves vis a vis radio and tele­vi­sion.

It is exact­ly with­in the remit of the Member of Parliament to demand that the pub­lic air­waves be purged of this cor­rupt­ing filth which glo­ri­fy death, destruc­tion and the debase­ment of our women.

In the same breath it is exact­ly the right, and indeed the duty of the Honorable Prime Minister to speak out on all issues , moral and oth­er­wise, which he believes are hav­ing neg­a­tive con­se­quences on the nation.

This car­nal assault on our sen­si­bil­i­ties have con­tin­ued unabat­ed for too long . It has exist­ed and thrived, cocooned and pack­aged under the guise of music, while lead­ers cow­er in fear of the ungovern­able mass­es , allow­ing their unbri­dled , unhinged point of view to become pub­lic policy..
Leaders have every right to get involved to ensure that san­i­ty returns to our pub­lic air­waves and pub­lic spaces.
It is not just up to them to demand an end to the vis­cous assault being per­pet­u­at­ed on our psy­che but what are allowed to be played in the dance halls as well.

For too long many in the Jamaican com­mu­ni­ty believe that they should not be held to any standard.
The polit­i­cal class, hav­ing dirty hands them­selves, have ced­ed the moral high-ground , unable to speak out or take action to cur­tail the garbage bom­bard­ing our eardrums .

OPPORTUNITY FOR CONSENSUS ON WAY FORWARD…

Andrew Holness is the JLP Prime Minister , Lisa Hanna is the PNP’s mem­ber of Parliament. Both have felt the ire of the ungovern­able goons who have no respect for authority.
This ought to cause both lead­ers pause.
Both lead­ers are right , some­thing you will sel­dom hear me say about politicians.
Nevertheless this ought to be a wake up call for both polit­i­cal par­ties in ways that they have not been awak­ened before.

They should not allow the out­cry from a peo­ple who can­not dif­fer­en­ti­ate wrong from right to deter them from tak­ing action to bring san­i­ty to this issue and oth­ers affect­ing social order in the country.
No damn pris­on­er have any right to record music while they are incar­cer­at­ed , much less music which may be deemed offen­sive and unfit for airplay.

According to the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s own web­site their offi­cial staff num­ber is 9,930 plus 55 aux­il­iary posi­tions, mak­ing a total of 9,985; its cur­rent strength (as of 2011) is 8,441.
I am unsure how up to date that infor­ma­tion is as the site still has Dr.Carl Williams as it’s com­mis­sion­er on some pages.

Notwithstanding, that the numer­ic strength of the Jamaica Constabulary Force has increased expo­nen­tial­ly from the 80’s to ear­ly 90’s when I served.
This was made pos­si­ble because the JCF absorbed the 2000 or so mem­bers of the Island Constabulary Force (ISCF) it’s Auxiliary into the main force.
Despite the crit­i­cal need for more police offi­cers the JCF has been unable to grow above the num­bers it released, despite con­stant train­ing of new recruits.

Unusually high attri­tion num­bers have plagued the force for years. Even recent­ly trained offi­cers are con­stant­ly on the look out for green­er pas­ture. Many in the depart­ment are trapped in a life of semi-pover­ty they would ditch in an instant if the oppor­tu­ni­ty arose.

Homicides have increased from 152 in 1970 to 1680 in 2009. despite hav­ing added expo­nen­tial­ly to the numer­ic strength of the Force and upgrades in equip­ment and tools of the trade the Police con­tin­ue to argue that they do not have the ade­quate resources to do the job.
This despite increas­es in the depart­ments mobil­i­ty , com­put­ers , bal­lis­tic vests and mod­ern weapons and accou­ter­ments mur­ders and oth­er seri­ous crimes have seen a steady year by year increase.

One thing is cer­tain, is that the JCF has been ham­pered by a deficit of trust and sup­port even as it is ham­strung by lack of actu­al resource.
One of the larg­er issues which con­tin­ue to ham­per law enforce­ment is the con­tin­ued unproven crim­i­nal cod­dling notion that being tough on crime has not worked.
Secondly is the bold faced lie that being tough on crime is equiv­a­lent to being abu­sive of cit­i­zen’s rights.

There is no mutu­al exclu­siv­i­ty in the two inter­est areas.
Aggressive law enforce­ment done with a smile, “sor­ry to ask this of you but it’s for your safe­ty” goes a long way in calm­ing fears and get­ting peo­ple on your side.

There are no short­age of experts with graphs and a mouth­ful of argu­ments on this issue . This writer does not need their graphs and Monday Morning quarterbacking .
I lived it.
In 2005 there were 1674 homi­cides report­ed to police.
In 2006 there were 1340
In 2007 there were 1574
In 2008 there were 1601
In 2009 there were 1680
In 2010 there were 1428, this was before the Security Forces were unshack­led and allowed to go after Criminals in Tivoli Gardens.

Murders fell to 1125 in 2011 . This means that when com­pared to the most recent pre­ced­ing year of 2010, 303 Jamaicans were allowed to keep their lives.
Those are irrefutable facts.
Imagine if the Police are allowed to walk into each and every Garrison on this lit­tle Island of 2.8 mil­lion , PNP or JLP and do their jobs?
This drop off of over 20% in that one year speaks loud­er than the faux experts and self appoint­ed author­i­ties on crime in the country.
Simply put , putting a boot heel on the neck of Murderers , Rapists and oth­er seri­ous felons is the only way to get crime down.

It is high time that the fan­ci­ful smoke and mir­rors be dis­pensed with.
This stu­pid con­tention that we have tried the hard nosed approach has no rela­tion­ship with facts .
There was nev­er a time that the Jamaican Police were allowed to go into Garrisons and arrest dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals with­out far reach­ing con­se­quence to themselves.
The per­va­sive law­less­ness which per­vades the cul­ture is a result of polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence in law enforce­ment and politi­cians active­ly shield­ing known Murders , Rapists, and even Cop killers.

TIME NOW FOR A PROBATION DEPARTMENT.….

It may be time now for a pro­ba­tion depart­ment as this admin­is­tra­tion say it is focused on reduc­ing crime.
A pro­ba­tion Department will free up more police man hour to tack­le crime head on . It also pro­vides up to the minute infor­ma­tion on crim­i­nals and their movements.
Instead of report­ing to a Police sta­tion a paroled offend­er or an offend­er on pro­ba­tion reports direct­ly to a Probation office.
If he or she vio­lates the terms or their release from jail it is the duty of the Probation office/​officer to take that offender/​s back into custody.

A well designed Probation depart­ment eas­es much bur­den from the police allow­ing them to go after crim­i­nals . Any upgrade of the Criminal jus­tice sys­tem should also include the for­ma­tion of a Probation Department.
The Probation Department should be close­ly aligned with the Corrections depart­ment but must work with the JCF in a close and col­lab­o­ra­tive way as well.

LAY MAGISTRATES(JP’s)

If our coun­try is to be a place where peo­ple can feel com­fort­able to live and raise their fam­i­lies in safe­ty , secu­ri­ty and pros­per­i­ty, lead­ers must lead.
These pro­pos­als are not nov­el ideas,
These are ideas which have been co-opt­ed by many oth­er suc­cess­ful nations into their jus­tice systems.
It bog­gles the mind that the Administration can be talk­ing about increas­ing the num­bers of JP’s oth­er­wise called lay mag­is­trates, when the his­to­ry of the Lay Magistrate Program has been at best a huge con­trib­u­tor to crime and cor­rup­tion on the Island.

This pro­gram since it’s incep­tion has been pop­u­lat­ed with polit­i­cal hacks and crim­i­nal mind­ed hus­tlers from both polit­i­cal parties.
It has been an inte­gral part of the rot and cor­rup­tion which has char­ac­ter­ized our cul­ture since Independence.
It is high time that this cor­rupt­ing influ­ence be dis­con­tin­ued rather than broadened .

The idea that decisive crime fighting initiatives are synonymous with breaching Human Rights is a falsehood perpetuated by those who make a living from high crime rates and a constant state of confrontation between Police and citizens.

♦The Office of the Public Defender♦ The Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights♦Jamaicans for Justice ♦Families against state Terrorism♦Peace Management Unit♦Amnesty International♦ Ministry of Justice ♦Attorney Generals Office ♦Etc.…..Etc.…Etc.….

These are just of few of the Agencies and Government Departments oper­at­ing in Jamaica sup­pos­ed­ly look­ing out for the inter­est and Human Rights of Jamaicans.
These bod­ies are sin­gu­lar­ly focused on the rights of those who say they have been aggriev­ed by agents of the state.

WHO LOOK OUT FOR THE INTEREST OF VICTIMS?

I may be wrong, as such I wel­come feed­back which will edu­cate me about exist­ing NGO’s in place which is geared at help­ing vic­tims of crime.
I have no quar­rel with gen­uine efforts to help peo­ple who have been vic­tim­ized by the Government or its agents.
For years the actions of both polit­i­cal par­ties on the Jamaican peo­ple have been trau­mat­ic and wor­thy of redress.
God knows all of us aver­age peo­ple need all of the help we can get when seek­ing redress from pow­er­ful Governments and their Agents.

We can­not ignore the fact that there has been no effort, at least that I have seen, insti­tut­ed to aid vic­tims of crime.
I believe fun­da­men­tal­ly that aid­ing those who through no fault of their own, have been vic­tim­ized by crime, is a far more noble cause than fight­ing to ensure that killers are treat­ed with care, as stip­u­lat­ed by des­ig­nat­ed Internationally based Liberal Agencies.

We await with gen­uine inter­est the new set of crime fight­ing ini­tia­tives to be announced by the Prime Minister.
Nevertheless, we remain deeply skep­ti­cal that any­thing announced will have any sub­stan­tive pos­i­tive result unless the police are unshack­led and empow­ered to go after crim­i­nals wher­ev­er they are.

There are more than enough process­es in place to ensure that police offi­cer who acts out­side the bounds of the laws are prosecuted.
I actu­al­ly believe that the degree to which the police is shack­led is a dri­ving force in the rapid growth and vicious­ness of the crimes being com­mit­ted on the most vulnerable.
It’s full time that this Administration sends a strong mes­sage to crim­i­nals that their actions will not be tolerated.
Anything else will sim­ply be a capit­u­la­tion to the vis­cous mur­der­ers who con­tin­ue to take inno­cent lives with impunity.

This is what Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International, had to say about our coun­try awhile back.
“Police shoot­ings are gen­er­al­ly attrib­uted to a “tough on crime” approach, but often dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly tar­get poor com­mu­ni­ties where vic­tims have lit­tle recourse.”
In the very same state­ment, Amnesty said this. “Jamaica has one of the world’s high­est mur­der rates and is rife with gang vio­lence.”

Amnesty International and oth­er Groups which take on the role of advo­cat­ing for human rights are able to research and report on what they see around the Globe.
Neither of these Internationally based Agencies has any impact on leg­is­la­tion out­side the broad­er frame­work of the Geneva Conventions and oth­er Treaties in the west­ern nations, Agency, even in which they are based or from which they emanate.

Jamaica should not allow Amnesty International or anAgency, or any Treaty to pre­vent it from doing what is it’s core function.
That is pro­vid­ing secu­ri­ty in the Jamaican state.
The fact that an International Human Rights Agency can ver­bal­ize the fact that(1) Jamaica has one of the high­est crime rate in the world and is rife with gang violence.

Then (2) argue that the very same vio­lent gang affil­i­at­ed young men” have lit­tle recourse to their lives of vio­lent crimes” when tar­get­ed by police crackdown.
This state­ments have vin­di­cat­ed my argu­ments that these agen­cies do not care about crime. Neither do they care about crime victims.
Obviously what they care about is main­tain­ing pres­sure on poor nations so that they are forced to hands off vio­lent crime, effec­tive­ly keep­ing their economies strug­gling and depen­dent on their larg­er more pow­er­ful patrons.

It is impor­tant to under­stand that these Agencies are based in the United States and Great Britain.
Having lived in the United States for over 25 year I am hard pressed to see a sit­u­a­tion in which Amnesty International , the Inter American Commission for Human Rights, or any oth­er Agency have once placed them­selves in the fight African-Americans have with unlaw­ful police killing of unarmed black men.

They have no pow­er in America, they should have no pow­er to dic­tate laws in Jamaica . Their advo­ca­cy in to ensure the con­tin­ued finan­cial depen­den­cy on the larg­er patron states , ie the United States, England etal.
It is a part of the world order which is geared at keep­ing small­er states with peo­ple of col­or finan­cial­ly dependent.
They can only guar­an­tee failed economies in crime rid­den soci­eties. Failed economies mean per­pet­u­al depen­den­cy on larg­er pow­er­ful states for loans.
These loans are attached to strin­gent aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures which in turn fur­ther impov­er­ish­es debtor states.
And the cycle continues.

The poor­est Nations with the high­est inci­dents of crime have the most vocal, most pow­er­ful Human Rights advocacy.
Nations which take their own futures in their own hands by dis­card­ing the views of these agen­cies have done very well for them­selves and in many cas­es are eco­nom­ic mod­els for the rest of the world.
The ques­tion is, when will Jamaicans real­ize that the very peo­ple sup­pos­ed­ly look­ing out for their well-being are the peo­ple keep­ing them in poverty.

The ever nagging question of crime continues to dominate the news in Jamaica, even as it remains topical in conversations across social Media.
In recent times the Jamaican Prime Minister was forced to address this serious issue because of the much-heightened instances of women and teenage girls being abducted, raped and murdered.

BAND AID ON GUNSHOT WOUND APPROACH.

Among the tiny pin-prick ini­tia­tives announced by Prime Minister Andrew Holness are (1) the use of pre­ven­ta­tive deten­tions of poten­tial offend­ers among mea­sures to help to con­tain crime.( I believe this has to do with domes­tic situations).
(2) That tints should be removed from all pub­lic pas­sen­ger vehi­cles. (This will be a process which in some cas­es will take up to a year for all to be brought into full compliance).

In addi­tion to the ini­ti­ates announced recent­ly, the Prime Minister announced just yes­ter­day that addi­tion­al anti-crime mea­sures are coming.
Without being too much of a smart ass, announcements.I dare­say that the mur­der­ers must be quak­ing in their announcements.

This admin­is­tra­tion, the one it suc­ceed­ed, like oth­ers before dat­ing back to 1962, have played fast and loose with the Jamaican peo­ple on the issue of their secu­ri­ty and more so in mak­ing the island a nation of laws.
To solid­i­fy their holds on the pow­er, they have used scarce pub­lic funds to cre­ate zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions with the sole intent of keep­ing them­selves in authority.
This process has ren­dered our elec­tions in many cas­es opti­cal exer­cis­es with the out­comes hav­ing no rela­tion­ship with what hap­pened in reality.

These zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions (gar­risons) have become breed­ing grounds for crime and a sig­nif­i­cant pow­er base against the rule of law.
The shock­ing mur­der sta­tis­tics must be viewed with angst and shock, but what’s even more fright­en­ing is the refusal by so many with­in the soci­ety to be gov­erned by the rule of law.
This law­less­ness occurred as a result of the inter­min­gling of politi­cians in crim­i­nal con­duct while tying the hands of law enforcement.

Throwing inad­e­quate­ly trained, poor­ly equipped, poor­ly sup­port­ed and com­pen­sat­ed police offi­cers into this bub­bling caul­dron of anar­chy does noth­ing to ame­lio­rate crime.
It places the lives of offi­cers in seri­ous jeop­ardy while cre­at­ing a false impres­sion that some­thing mean­ing­ful is being done.
Again, pan­der­ing to the opti­cal with­out doing any­thing worth­while and lasting.

Fixing crime requires new leg­is­la­tion which puts mur­der­ers in prison and keep­ing them there. It requires pro­vid­ing jobs so that young peo­ple can have alter­na­tive options to lives of crime. It requires a change in the Bail Act which pre­vents judges from giv­ing bail to peo­ple accused of mur­der. It requires fix­ing the crim­i­nal jus­tice system.
It requires throw­ing out the train­ing man­u­al of the police acad­e­my and putting in its place a train­ing pro­gram which reflects the tasks and dan­gers offi­cers face on the job today.

NEW COMMISSIONER OF POLICE…?

There is so much that has to be done, that is not being done.
If recent media reports are any­thing to go by, Police. Deputy Commissioner of Police Novelette Grant will be tapped to be the next CommissiPolice. According to the Jamaicadailygleaner​.com The Police Service Commission is poised to announce that Acting Police Commissioner Novelette Grant has been select­ed to lead the Force. That announce­ment is expect­ed short­ly. “Ms. Grant was appoint­ed to act in the post, but it appears that it was a test run and she has passed with fly­ing colors.”

Novelette Grant is supreme­ly qualified.
Supremely skilled was a char­ac­ter­i­za­tion used to describe her pre­de­ces­sor (assum­ing that reports of her appoint­ment are true).
The dif­fer­ence with Novelette Grant in my esti­ma­tion is that she is not only book smart, but she is also ful­ly in tune with the day to day chal­lenges offi­cers on the streets face.
She has head­ed the tight police Area 5 which com­pris­es St Thomas, St Catherine, and St Andrew North.
But beyond that, she is one of only a tiny group of senior police offi­cials with­in the JCF who believe they are police officers.
Novelette Grant should gar­ner much sup­port from the men and women under her com­mand. She is total­ly deserv­ing of this oppor­tu­ni­ty to lead the JCF.
Not because she is a woman, the nation can ill afford to have a quo­ta dri­ven approach to policing.
She deserves the job because she has earned the oppor­tu­ni­ty to lead.

Regardless of the wealth of knowl­edge and skills Novelette Grant brings to the table, it will be all for noth­ing if she is not giv­en strong leg­isla­tive backing.
Her efforts will be thwart­ed, ren­der­ing her tal­ent and skills redun­dant as that of so many oth­ers have been before her.
That can change if polit­i­cal lead­ers put the inter­est of the coun­try over their own and make the hard deci­sions which once and for all demon­strate to those inclined that they will not be able to break laws with impunity.

The Government will have to tell those who make a liv­ing from human rights advo­ca­cy that they are appre­ci­at­ed, but they should to sit down and shut up.
Placing a ban­dage on a gun­shot wound with­out remov­ing the war­head and fix­ing the dam­age it did, is a death sen­tence for the victim.
So too is the present approach to crime.
The Nation is dying a slow but sure death, even as it’s lead­ers insti­tute incon­se­quen­tial and mean­ing­less fixes.