A Classic Failure Of Will To Get Rid Of The Garbage For The First 100 Days : We Told You So…

Governing is never easy , it requires leadership which often times does not square with popular opinion. However the truly great ones know what is right and do them despite the howls of condemnation and consternation coming from those who have an opinion on everything but never did anything for anyone but themselves.

In under­stand­ing what needs to be done with­in the frame­work of any polit­i­cal real­i­ty, it is impor­tant to under­stand the val­ue of polit­i­cal cap­i­tal. Withing those con­fines it is imper­a­tive that before a polit­i­cal vic­to­ry is achieved, there in in place a plan to spend polit­i­cal cap­i­tal, under­stand­ing what may be achiev­able at par­tic­u­lar points in that term in office. Bolder ini­tia­tives ear­li­er , less far-reach­ing ini­tia­tives lat­er on.

I learned a long time ago that even as I con­tem­plate and dis­cuss ideas it is impor­tant that I rec­og­nize that my dreams and aspi­ra­tions as it relates to any giv­en issue does not nec­es­sar­i­ly coin­cide with that of others.
I am a pas­sion­ate advo­cate for a crime free soci­ety, as such I lead by exam­ple. Do I some­time dri­ve above the speed lim­it ? Yes.
Do I engage in any oth­er forms of unlaw­ful con­duct ? No.
My behav­ior choic­es does not mean that I am a goody-two-shoes , it sim­ply means that a life of crime con­flicts with my world view.

Having dis­cussed the crit­i­cal issue of crime and vio­lence with­in many forums and hav­ing seen the respons­es of Jamaicans on the sub­ject I have con­clud­ed that the aver­age Jamaican does not see the crip­pling issue of mur­der , shoot­ings, rapes, and oth­er assaults on their per­sons as too much of a “big­gie”.
In fact there is a per­va­sive con­tent­ment with crime in Jamaica despite the fact that peo­ple liv­ing in oth­er places in the world are aghast at the lev­el of vio­lence with­in the society.
Despite the fick­le nature of tourism, the emerg­ing Cuban des­ti­na­tion, Jamaica still con­tin­ue to active­ly sup­port crim­i­nal­i­ty while beg­ging tourist to come.
Come to what? Now the busi­ness peo­ple begin to pan­ic, this is not a joke anymore.
As I allud­ed to in pre­vi­ous arti­cles the Island has now set­tled into a new nor­mal in which mur­der and may­hem is the nor­mal. It pains me to say it but from all appear­ances Jamaicans love the killings.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​o​n​t​a​g​u​e​s​-​a​p​p​o​i​n​t​m​e​n​t​-​s​a​y​-​a​d​m​i​n​i​s​t​r​a​t​i​o​n​s​-​s​e​r​i​o​u​s​n​e​s​s​-​c​r​i​me/

The only killings Jamaicans are opposed to are police offi­cers killing crim­i­nals who con­front them . Police offi­cers are sum­mar­i­ly exco­ri­at­ed for killing the most vicious killers who con­front them. Agencies with­ing the Government fall over them­selves to make sure that the fam­i­lies of the most vile crim­i­nals the cops ter­mi­nate are appeased and consoled.
This leads to the log­i­cal ques­tions (1) whether the soci­ety is inno­cent and (2) whether peo­ple out­side look­ing in should feel com­pas­sion for the fam­i­lies of the dead.
I under­stand it is prob­a­bly not the right thing to do to lump every­one under the same umbrel­la. Truth be told I have many fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends liv­ing on the Island who are the fur­thest thing from being sup­port­ers of criminals.

I dare­say there are many peo­ple who would attest that their fam­i­ly mem­bers are indeed not sup­port­ive of crim­i­nals or def­er­en­tial to those who engage in lives of crime.
However it is instruc­tive to con­sid­er Transparency International“s con­tin­ued report­ing on the fright­en­ing degree of cor­rup­tion with­in the Jamaican society.
Jamaica is the 69 least cor­rupt nation out of 175 coun­tries, accord­ing to the 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index report­ed by Transparency International. Corruption Rank in Jamaica aver­aged 72.06 from 1998 until 2015, reach­ing an all time high of 99 in 2009 and a record low of 45 in 2002. Corruption Rank in Jamaica is report­ed by the Transparency International. http://​www​.tradinge​co​nom​ics​.com/​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​/​c​o​r​r​u​p​t​i​o​n​-​r​ank

Not exact­ly the worst coun­try but not exact­ly some­thing we want to cel­e­brate either. Which leads me to the rea­son I am writ­ing this blog.
Did Andrew Holness sur­mise that the issue of crime and vio­lence with­in the Jamaican soci­ety was too endem­ic to spend pre­cious polit­i­cal cap­i­tal on?
It is fair to cred­it the Prime Minister with speak­ing to crime and vio­lence in his par­lia­men­tary con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get debate, as well as briefly at his Kings House swear­ing in as Prime Minister. Yet despite speak­ing on the sub­ject on sev­er­al oth­er occa­sions, this writer is uncon­vinced that the Prime Minister is (1) pre­pared to expend cap­i­tal in defense of the rule of law or (2) ful­ly cog­nizant that the growth agen­da of which he speaks is at best half-ass with the sti­fling crime and vio­lence in the country.

THE FOLLOWING ACCORDING TO THE JAMAICA DAILY GLEANER

Zero Rating For Crime In First 100 Day

The Government of Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his National Security Minister Robert Montague has scored low to no marks for fail­ing to imple­ment any new crime ini­tia­tives in its first 100 days to curb the homi­ci­dal mon­ster which has turned Jamaica into a bloody par­adise. In addi­tion, Montague’s now infa­mous sug­ges­tions — that police­men wear con­doms, because too many are in the fam­i­ly court for child main­te­nance; and that sec­ond-hand cars being used to ease the motor vehi­cle short­age in the con­stab­u­lary was bet­ter than no car at all — have not endeared him to com­men­ta­tors attend­ing Gleaner Editors’ Forum last week exam­in­ing the Government’s per­for­mance in its first 100 days in office. This upcom­ing Sunday will mark the 100^th day of Holness’ administration.

“My com­ments on secu­ri­ty are not spe­cif­ic to one admin­is­tra­tion or the next. Crime is a major prob­lem and so far it still exists as a major prob­lem,” said Gary Peart, chief exec­u­tive offi­cer of Mayberry Investments. According to Peart: “… Crime con­tin­ues to get worse. And there has to be a sys­tem­at­ic way in which we deal with major crime. We have gone through a 100 days and we have not seen any­thing.” Members of the secu­ri­ty forces have been deployed to sev­er­al parts of the island as crime, espe­cial­ly homi­cide has spi­raled out of con­trol, caus­ing senior crime fight­ers to scratch their heads. Police Commissioner Dr Carl Williams recent­ly moved com­man­ders to dif­fer­ent divi­sions with­in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), in a bid to stem the bleed­ing in Western Jamaica, Clarendon and oth­er sec­tions of the island.

Blood is now flow­ing in mul­ti­ples and last week’s dou­ble mur­ders in sev­er­al parish­es, includ­ing out­side a busi­ness place at Southdale Plaza in St Andrew, have caused fear to be at a paralysing lev­el. Yaneek Page, founder and man­ag­ing direc­tor of Future Services International Limited (FSIL) a pio­neer­ing com­pa­ny in legal fund­ing in Jamaica, said in the ini­tial stages of the Holness admin­is­tra­tion there were more feet on the ground. “That was the com­mu­ni­ca­tion we had heard, that we would actu­al­ly see more offi­cers on the ground. And we have heard a lot about using used cars and so on. But I don’t think we have seen any major pol­i­cy moves that would give us con­fi­dence that we are going to see any­thing that will see a reduc­tion in crime so far,” said Page. For insur­ance exec­u­tive Donovan Mayne, the admin­is­tra­tion’s per­for­mance on secu­ri­ty gets a low rat­ing. “If I were to use the rat­ing on some con­sump­tion goods… it would be a zero rat­ing just like GCT (gen­er­al con­sump­tion tax),” said Mayne.

“There is noth­ing hap­pen­ing in the Ministry of National Security, even though 100 days is a lit­tle hard to mea­sure. I think six months to a year (would pro­vide a bet­ter judge of per­for­mance). Nothing has come out as pol­i­cy, though.” Former Education Minister The Reverend Ronald Thwaites said it was com­mend­able that the min­is­ter (Montague) was con­sult­ing and that he has appeared to be approach­able. “In terms of lead­ing pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives, it is con­doms, used cars and death penal­ty,” Thwaites how­ev­er added. Management con­sul­tant Dr Henley Morgan said he has served on two com­mit­tees on crime so far and they have been the biggest waste of time he has expe­ri­enced. “Nothing ever comes of these rec­om­men­da­tions. I had a chance to watch the new min­is­ter up front at a recent func­tion and I watched the optics, man­ner­isms and words,” Morgan said. “One of the things I am sure of is that he will not make the mis­take of the pre­vi­ous ones in pre­tend­ing that he is a crime spe­cial­ist.” He added: “We have not seen him take on any big and con­tro­ver­sial issues so far.” Morgan said how­ev­er that min­is­ters of nation­al secu­ri­ty are stymied because their roles are not well defined.

The police have indi­cat­ed that, since the start of the year, there has been a 10 per cent reduc­tion in all cat­e­gories of crime, except mur­ders, when com­pared with the sim­i­lar peri­od last year. The St James divi­sion con­tin­ues to record a high rate of mur­ders with 103 since the star of the year, a 27 per cent increase over the same time last year. http://​jamaica​glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​l​e​a​d​-​s​t​o​r​i​e​s​/​2​0​1​6​0​6​0​9​/​z​e​r​o​-​r​a​t​i​n​g​-​c​r​i​m​e​-​f​i​r​s​t​-​1​0​0​-​d​ays

Generally speak­ing I am usu­al­ly wary of the mus­ings of the Gleaner but this deduc­tion by this par­tic­u­lar pan­el is dead on correct.
I have writ­ten at length on this offer­ing solu­tions free of charge to the Administration on how this mon­ster can be tamed but where is the will?
Even as these pan­elists speak to this crit­i­cal issue, I doubt whether they have the stom­ach to rec­om­mend what needs to be done.
This Jamaica nation unfor­tu­nate­ly is bla­tant­ly cor­rupt and pre­ten­tious . The peo­ple are either woe­ful­ly igno­rant but opin­ion­at­ed or some­what edu­cat­ed and inde­scrib­ably pretentious.

It is a dan­ger­ous mix of the igno­rant and the pre­ten­tious which got us into the shit we are in as a nation. The police kept the lid on things through the 80’s and 90’s when we took no bull­shit from criminals .
Criminals fled the coun­try to Cuba, Canada, England , the US and oth­er places.
The US cre­at­ed the Rico Statute and effec­tive­ly put these low life scum bags where they belonged, many are back on the Island cre­at­ing may­hem , many are dead.
The Police are no longer allowed to enforce the nation’s laws. In the place of law enforce­ment is a wannabe hero oper­at­ing as pro­tec­tor of the peo­ple, only thing is that this Napoleonic crea­ture is out to make a name for himself.
In this nation of the pre­ten­tious blind the one-eyed Terrence Williams and (inde­com) is king.

There needs to be a rad­i­cal shift to change the par­a­digm. There are peo­ple will­ing to drop every­thing and get to work clean­ing up the shit.