Friends In Crucial Places, Holness Lets The Police Know “I Don’t Rate You”.

The idea that com­pe­tent lead­er­ship does not exist both at the man­age­r­i­al and oper­a­tional lev­els of the JCF are sim­ply not true.

It would be disin­gen­u­ous how­ev­er to pre­tend that brain drain has not had a sig­nif­i­cant neg­a­tive impact at all lev­els of the Jamaican workforce.

As the present Administration is forced to deal with vio­lent crimes whether it wants to or not, it’s attempt at try­ing to embar­rass and alien­at­ing the police by pit­ting the JDF against the JCF is both wrong and myopic.

There is an argu­ment to be made about the state of the JCF at present, much of which can eas­i­ly be traced back to the malfea­sance of the two polit­i­cal par­ties since the ear­ly 60’s.

As the debate inten­si­fies, much of which stu­pid­ly cen­ter on dis­band­ing the JCF, the admin­is­tra­tion and the oppo­si­tion par­ty must do some intro­spec­tion. If they desire to see a bet­ter Jamaica they should take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the present state of affairs.

If there was a process by which, with the stroke of a pen the JCF could be dis­band­ed and a new enti­ty formed to replace it, where would the new police offi­cers come from?

Would the shiny new offi­cers come from China like the huge influx of Chinese work­ers who have tak­en over the con­struc­tion and busi­ness industries?

Where would the guar­an­tees come from as well, the sto­ries of dis­re­spect met­ed out to Jamaican labor­ers by their Chinese Overlords at work­sites are well documented.

We have also seen the way they treat our chil­dren in their stores and have been forced to apologize.
And so you ask where are you going with this?

I’ll tell you. The answers to Jamaica’s prob­lems are going to be solved by Jamaicans, just like the prob­lems the Chinese face will be solved by the Chinese and the prob­lems of the Americans will be solved by Americans.
Our peo­ple are resource­ful, tal­ent­ed and smart, what has been lack­ing in our coun­try is inspired hon­est leadership.

After the 1962 Independence dec­la­ra­tion, the coun­try’s lead­er­ship in both polit­i­cal par­ties did what oth­er black and brown lead­ers in Africa and oth­er parts of the world did.
They set the stage to hold onto pow­er and enrich them­selves, per­son­al enrich­ment over country.

BRINGING THE CONVERSATION INTO FOCUS.

In the his­to­ry of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, two past heads of the Island’s Defense Force have tak­en the helm of the Department, arguably with no pos­i­tive outcome.
The image of the two are here along with the dura­tion of their tenure. In the his­to­ry of the JDF, no retired Commissioner of Police has ever been cho­sen to head the Defense Force.

The his­to­ry of the JDF com­ports much more with Jamaica’s stub­born insis­tence on main­tain­ing a caste sys­tem in line with its colo­nial­ist past than does the JCF.
The his­to­ry of the JDF is replete with the sons of the well to do using the defense force to bur­nish their resumes^without the atten­dant prospect of hav­ing to face actu­al warfare.

Once cho­sen, JDF offi­cer can­di­dates are sent to one of sev­er­al British or Canadian basic offi­cer cours­es depend­ing upon the arm of ser­vice. Additional mil­i­tary schools are avail­able for spe­cial­ty train­ing in Canada, China, the United States, and the United Kingdom.(wiki)

The lead­er­ship of the Police depart­ment has gen­er­al­ly come from peo­ple who clawed their way out of the soil, except for the peri­od pri­or to the appoint­ment of Mister  B.L. Robinson, O.J., C.D. Q.P.M, J.P Commissioner from 1973 to 1977. Commissioner Robinson was the first native-born. 

If you are able to extrap­o­late any sense from the two briefs I just laid out between the two forces, you may have a bet­ter idea why the Police depart­ment was nev­er a dar­ling of the upper crust. Juxtapose that with the ani­mus derived from the pub­lic’s dai­ly con­tact with law enforce­ment and the army becomes a lot more attrac­tive of the two forces.

Anthony Anderson was just con­firmed to be the next Commissioner of police, the débâ­cle of the two pre­vi­ous instances did not serve to deter the pow­ers from embark­ing on this fool’s errand again.

Anderson was appoint­ed the Nation’s first National secu­ri­ty advi­sor and spe­cial advis­er to the prime min­is­ter, he will now be tasked with reduc­ing run-away crime on the Island and find a way to keep the offi­cers he leapfrogged hap­py, that they the peas­ants are inca­pable of inspired com­pe­tent leadership.

Never mind the rank and file mem­bers of the peas­antry who now knows with­out a doubt that no mat­ter how hard they toil, no mat­ter how much degrees they earn , no mat­ter how many cours­es they attend and no mat­ter how many bul­lets they take they are not con­sid­ered good enough to do the job they are the most qual­i­fied to do.