Dip In Some Crimes COVID Related, Has Nothing To Do With Tony Anderson…

The pri­vate sec­tor says new cur­fews result­ing from COVID-19 could see some rever­sal of the recent eco­nom­ic gains and the recov­ery of jobs.
At the rate, Jamaica is going in mur­ders, road fatal­i­ties, and, covid death pret­ty soon there will be no short­age of jobs, there won’t be any­one to fill those jobs.
It is a del­i­cate bal­ance that the gov­ern­ment is forced to strike in try­ing to pre­vent spikes in COVID-19 cas­es while con­sid­er­ing the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic health. I am yet unsure whether forc­ing peo­ple to stay inside their homes from 8;00 is the right way to go?
The coun­try’s lead­er­ship will have to decide whether it is fea­si­ble to lock peo­ple in their homes under the penal­ty of jail to fight the virus, as against the per­cep­tion that these cur­fews are intend­ed to main­tain the drop in non-vio­lent crimes the coun­try has been witnessing.

A few days ago, the Minister of National Security Horace Chang and his deputy told local media that the prime strate­gies they have in place are work­ing, despite the spate of killings across the Island. Chang point­ed to police sta­tis­tics that show a dip in non-vio­lent offens­es like house­break­ing, in that data were few­er rapes and robberies.
Murders were con­ve­nient­ly left ut of Chang’s presentation.
I point­ed out that crime is not a polit­i­cal issue; I sup­port the admin­is­tra­tion in oth­er areas, not nation­al secu­ri­ty. To sug­gest that “we have to give Tony Anderson more time to set­tle in” is an insult to every cop from District Constable to Deputy Commissioner.
More than all, it is an insult to the Jamaican peo­ple as mur­ders con­tin­ue unabat­ed to tell us that you are renew­ing Anderson’s con­tract because he is mod­ern­iz­ing the force.
What does that mod­ern­iz­ing entail, that we are forced to accept the dai­ly mur­ders of our fam­i­ly mem­bers while some bureau­crat mod­ern­izes the force?
If “Tony Anderson” can­not walk and chew gum simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, he has no busi­ness being in the job he has. It is up to Horace Chang to mod­ern­ize the force; the police chief’s job is to ensure that crime is con­tained to a minimum.
In fact, Tony Anderson had no cre­den­tials in polic­ing, law, or any oth­er dis­ci­pline close­ly relat­ed to the task of being a chief con­sta­ble. He got the job out of bla­tant pol­i­tics, and we are being forced to accept him whether we like his work or not.

I hate to find myself mak­ing a case for the police high com­mand, and I do so in prin­ci­ple, not out of affec­tion, or respect for that club’s mem­bers. Nevertheless, it is a slap to their faces the way this admin­is­tra­tion treats them. No, no, the PNP is far worse, so in actu­al­i­ty, the police find them­selves between dumb and dumb­er, more arro­gant and most arrogant.
Many mem­bers of the police high com­mand are mere polit­i­cal lap­dogs to the cor­rupt lit­tle politi­cians; it is nauseating.
That is the rea­son Andrew Holness has no respect for them. For those rea­sons, we are ordered to “give Tony Anderson time”[sic].
No com­mis­sion­er of police to come up from the con­sta­ble rank would have received such grace and deference.
But this is hard­ly about mak­ing the case against Anderson; I have nev­er met him; as I have said in oth­er forums, the guy seems like a great guy. I may have had a Red Stripe with him, assum­ing Holness allows him to drink a beer.
I believe that he is over his head, although I do not believe any police com­mis­sion­er can suc­cess­ful­ly use the anti-crime strate­gies the gov­ern­ment is using.
You can­not work in cement with­out expe­ri­enc­ing cement dust. You can­not paint and not get some col­or on what­ev­er you are wear­ing as sur­face apparel.
The point is that police [can­not] work with the worst crim­i­nals with­out get­ting push­back about exces­sive force?
As a for­mer police offi­cer myself, I know the streets, I have worked them with some of the best cops, and I have seen some of the worst. All in all, police offi­cers need some lat­i­tude to do their jobs with­out the pha­lanx of know noth­ing opin­ion­at­ed Monday morn­ing quar­ter­backs pass­ing judg­ment with­out know­ing the facts of alle­ga­tions against them.

I am a crit­ic of abu­sive and overzeal­ous polic­ing; I have seen it in the United States, I have seen the destruc­tive con­se­quences of race-based polic­ing. And yet, in each case, that offi­cer sare under the micro­scope for unlaw­ful behav­ior; I wait for the facts to emerge before div­ing in against the officers.
As an offi­cer in Jamaica, I was shot doing my job, but I nev­er stopped believ­ing in the good­ness of the peo­ple I served, and I know the qual­i­ty of the infor­ma­tion they gave to me.
Our offi­cers must get back to build­ing rela­tion­ships with the com­mu­ni­ties they serve.
In every sit­u­a­tion in which a team fails, the focus [must]be on man­age­ment, not on the team. If the team is bad, it is the coach­es’ fault (com­mis­sion­er & lead­er­ship team) or the team owner,(Government).
Coaches and own­ers do not get to blame play­ers (police offi­cers) for fail­ing to win, ( con­tain & erad­i­cate crime).
Regardless of cir­cum­stances of bad out­comes, it is always the lead­er­ship that’s at fault.
This Administration can­not con­tin­ue to blame police offi­cers for crime surges and esca­la­tion. It is the job of the Government to find solu­tions and exe­cute those solutions.

Andrew Holness’s try­ing to appease for­eign nations like the United States and Canada, which have their own domes­tic ter­ror­ism prob­lems, is both fool­ish and counterproductive.
Bear in mind that it will be these same nations, includ­ing England, that will declare Jamaica a failed state when it serves their purposes.
Jamaican lead­ers are not quick to grasp the con­cept of inter­na­tion­al machi­na­tions and the way large, pow­er­ful nations manip­u­late small­er, less pow­er­ful coun­tries to do their will. Many Jamaicans have already had their US visas yanked; these events ought to be a warn­ing that pow­er­ful nations still believe it is their right to cur­tail the free trav­el of humans across the globe. They can place any­one on a ter­ror watch list, and that per­son will not be able to board a flight, guilty or innocent.
Nelson Mandela was on a ter­ror watch list.
Jamaica needs a raft of new laws to com­bat dan­ger­ous trans-nation­al crim­i­nal­i­ty. The coun­try needs an expand­ed judi­cia­ry. It requires an expand­ed pros­e­cu­tor’s office. The gov­ern­ment needs a bet­ter trained, bet­ter-paid police department.
It needs an inde­pen­dent police review board made up of intel­li­gent peo­ple, includ­ing for­mer police offi­cers who served in street units.
The coun­try needs the repeal of the INDECOM Act. We should all be clear that the INDECOM act was forced onto Bruce Golding by for­eign pow­ers, it must be repealed.
Only when we adopt these mea­sures will we begin to see a mea­sur­able reduc­tion in vio­lent crime, one that is sustainable.
lock­ing peo­ple in their homes all night is not the answer, sure if peo­ple are in their homes hard­ly any­one will break-in and if they are not on the streets they are less like­ly t be robbed or raped.
So there you have it dear min­is­ter Horace Chang the dip in those crimes is eas­i­ly explained it has noth­ing to do with any­thing your boy [Tony Anderson] is doing, it’s COVID.
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.Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.