Continued Lack Of Will Resulted In Over 1300 Hundred Jamaicans Killed In 2019…(video Inside)

Mike Beckles

There is much that can be said about crime in the Caribbean region and the way indi­vid­ual Island nations deal with it on their own.
One thing is cer­tain, is that no Caribbean coun­try has dealt as poor­ly with the issue of crime as Jamaica has.
Across the region, we have seen peo­ple take decid­ed stances, in some cas­es even more stri­dent than their respec­tive gov­ern­ments, has been against who they believe are vio­lence pro­duc­ers who will inex­orably degrade the qual­i­ty of their lives. This has sparked protests from our native Jamaica, and her nation­als, a clear sign that Jamaicans are hav­ing doors slammed shut in their faces even across the CARICOM region. 

A for­mer col­league retired Deputy Commissioner of Police Novelette Grant spoke elo­quent­ly on this issue in a social media post days ago, detail­ing in no uncer­tain terms how our polit­i­cal lead­ers have let Jamaica down as a mat­ter of polit­i­cal expe­di­en­cy, and our coun­try­men and women pur­sue a path of destruc­tion while expect­ing good out­comes.
DCP grant wrote in ref­er­ence to a local pub­li­ca­tion’s head­line “mur­ders galore”, It is a dis­mal indict­ment on a fail­ing soci­ety that glo­ri­fies the wrong val­ues and idol­izes per­sons who pro­mote may­hem. Even more appalling is the igno­rance that pre­vents us from cause and effects out­comes, we do the same things day in day out and are sur­prised when we get a wors­en­ing of the same outcomes.

Needless to say, these pages have been ded­i­cat­ed since 2010 to argu­ing, and urg­ing my fel­low Jamaicans to change course from the path they are on.
The cen­tral theme as val­i­dat­ed by Grant is that we are yet to make the link between respect for the rule of law and safe­ty and secu­ri­ty.
The aver­age Jamaican would like to live to a ripe old age, even those who engage in tak­ing the lives of oth­ers, they too cry like lit­tle bitch­es when con­front­ed with cer­tain death.
Yet arguably, the aver­age Jamaican engages in prac­tices that lit­er­al­ly guar­an­tee that they will be vic­tim­ized by vio­lent crime.
Hiding crim­i­nals. Refusing to give infor­ma­tion to law enforce­ment in con­fi­dence. Actively shield­ing crim­i­nals. Benefitting and prof­it­ing from crim­i­nal con­duct. Demonizing and slan­der­ing law-enforce­ment for doing their jobs. Actively engag­ing in demon­stra­tions against police and pro­vid­ing false state­ments to adver­sar­i­al agen­cies opposed to the rule of law, are only a few of those prac­tices which are anti­thet­i­cal to a sta­ble demo­c­ra­t­ic nation.

Some of the fac­tors which plague Jamaica also plague oth­er Caribbean nations. Political inter­fer­ence. Lobbying from enti­ties like defense lawyers, so-called human rights groups and oth­er NGOs has pro­vid­ed suc­cor and sup­port to crim­i­nal gangs in ways they nev­er bar­gained for.
The year 2019 just con­clud­ed and even though we do not have the offi­cial crime sta­tis­tics from the police, it is safe to say that over 1300 Jamaicans have been mur­dered despite the imple­men­ta­tion of mul­ti­ple States Emergencies (SOE’s) & Zones Of Special Operations (ZOSO’s) across var­i­ous hotspots across the Island.
Clearly, the mea­sures in place are not work­ing. Clearly, a new approach is need­ed. The solu­tion to Jamaica’s crime epi­dem­ic is not to be found in any new crime plan, ZOSO, SOE or any oth­er stop-gap mea­sure.
In fact, it will not be found in the train­ing of more of the same cour­tesy corps cops who are being turned out onto the streets in num­bers but are unable to effect a sim­ple arrest with dis­patch and pro­fi­cien­cy.
A thou­sand zeroes are still worth noth­ing unless a sol­id pos­i­tive num­ber pre­cedes them, More poor­ly trained, poor­ly super­vised, poor­ly renu­mer­at­ed, poor­ly sup­port­ed police makes no dif­fer­ence.
During my ser­vice, I saw those dead­wood cops in name only. As one who engages in social com­men­tary years lat­er, I see the same dead­wood, many of whom served over three decades yet made not a damn dif­fer­ence beyond the salaries they col­lect­ed.
Most of them are the harsh­est crit­ics of those who prof­fer work­able ideas out­side their scope of understanding.

Across the Caribbean Sea in the twin Island Republic of Trinidad & Tobago mur­ders and acts of ter­ror­ism has long being a part of their infra­struc­ture as it has been ours.
Today Trinidad and Tobago have a Police Commissioner who exem­pli­fies what polic­ing and lead­er­ship of police ser­vices ought to look like.
Commissioner Gary Griffiths is a no-non­sense police com­mis­sion­er who is a cop’s cop.
He is unafraid of the spe­cial inter­est, crim­i­nal lawyers, ( term self-explana­to­ry). Those who make a name from demo­niz­ing cops, and oth­ers tasked with inves­ti­gat­ing cops

This year, this medi­um cel­e­brates a decade of com­mit­ment to the rule of law, through its unwa­ver­ing sup­port for the nation’s law enforce­ment agency.
As it’s founder, and a past mem­ber of the JCF, I have com­plet­ed count­less hours of research and writ­ings ded­i­cat­ed to the bet­ter­ment of our coun­try, through sup­port for the rule of law.
Throughout that time I have argued that the hier­ar­chy of the JCF has been the most cor­rupt incom­pe­tent bunch of peo­ple any­where in law enforce­ment.
Some of the adjec­tives I have used to describe them have been unsa­vory but well earned.
In recent times the new head of the Police Federation Sergeant Petra Rowe has shed the cloak of fear and tore into that same group label­ing them lazy, and opposed to the present com­mis­sion­er’s agen­da.
It is good to see new police lead­er­ship grow­ing balls and speak­ing out against this cor­rupt lot of incompetents.

This how­ev­er in no way absolves the imbe­cil­ic lead­er­ship of the two polit­i­cal par­ties. Neither has shown a ded­i­ca­tion to the secu­ri­ty and sol­ven­cy of Jamaica. Instead what they have engaged in are cheap polit­i­cal pos­tur­ing which has been dan­ger­ous­ly detri­men­tal to our coun­try, all because of the need to gain and main­tain polit­i­cal con­trol.
At least when Commissioner Griffiths speaks in Trinidad and Tobago those polit­i­cal imbe­ciles have the shame to remain silent.
In Jamaica, a police com­mis­sion­er is mere­ly a lap­dog for the crim­i­nal sup­port­ing morons who beat the desks in the par­lia­ment build­ing. As such from 103 Old Hope Road down, the JCF is noth­ing but a neutered mon­grel with no bark, and cer­tain­ly no bite.
If only we had police lead­ers in our coun­try will­ing to stand up for Jamaica, but of course, our soci­etal mon­grels would not even have the shame to sim­ply shut their stu­pid mouths.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, researcher, and blog­ger. 
He is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.