Holness Quickly Running Out Of Political Capital To Deal Effectively With Crime…

Jamaica hab enuff law, wi nu need nu more law .

That’s a view many Jamaicans have when the ques­tion of crime comes up.
There is not much truth to that how­ev­er. Most of our nation’s laws were writ­ten before the Island gained Independence from Britain.
Those laws were writ­ten to deal effec­tive­ly with the issues of the day.
The puni­tive com­po­nents in those laws, both cus­to­di­al and oth­er­wise, reflect­ed the val­ue placed on things and mon­ey and the val­ues of the time.

Over the years the lack of teeth has fos­tered a dis­re­spect for our laws , a process which was bound to result an increase in crime.
And it has.
Times change , back in the 70’s there was no inter­net so there was no need to have laws gov­ern­ing the internet.
There were not many reports of child traf­fick­ing, now there are, so there is a need for laws to deal with those.
That is not to say that the lack of teeth in our laws is sole­ly respon­si­ble for the dra­mat­ic esca­la­tion of crim­i­nal­i­ty since 1962 to today.
The list of fac­tors which forms that per­fect storm is well know and has been described and debat­ed ad nauseam

The prob­lem is not that Jamaicans can­not obey laws. It’s non­sen­si­cal to assume or sug­gest also that Jamaicans have a propen­si­ty or a pre­dis­po­si­tion toward com­mit­ting crimes.
Despite the large amounts of Jamaicans sent back to the Island through the depor­ta­tion process, the vast major­i­ty of our peo­ple who immi­grate to oth­er coun­tries are law abid­ing. So we have estab­lished that as a peo­ple we can obey laws.
We have demon­strat­ed arguably, that we do not have any gene in us which makes us com­mit crimes over and above any oth­er group­ing of people.

SO WHAT IS IT ABOUT US ?

Before we get to the answer to that ques­tion , lets toss out pover­ty as a decid­ing factor .
Many impov­er­ished nations have far less crime than Jamaica per capi­ta . Cuba,one such coun­try ‚is locat­ed just 90 miles off our shore.
All across Asia and Africa peo­ple live in far greater pover­ty than most Jamaicans are exposed to.
Yet they record sig­nif­i­cant­ly less homi­cide that Jamaica does . Even coun­tries which are far larg­er and much more pop­u­lous record sig­nif­i­cant­ly less crime.

The notion that we can close down the pris­ons and sim­ply pro­vide jobs for every­one and we will some­how be able to sleep with our doors unlocked, or as in Jamaica’s case leave some of the grill for­ti­fi­ca­tions unlocked is sim­ply stupid.
Would there be a less­en­ing of crime if every­one has a job?
Probably?
But not as much as some would like to have you believe.
Which brings us to why , why is there so much crime in Jamaica?

GREED, ENVY, WANTING TO LIVE ABOVE THEIR MEANS , AND SYSTEM WHICH DOES NOT PUNISH CRIMINALS !!!

A peo­ple who pro­mote gang­sters , demo­nizes police offi­cers, and nur­ture and give aid and com­fort to crim­i­nals have no busi­ness expect­ing to live free from crime.
Post a com­ment to social media which dogs police offi­cers, or glo­ri­fies gang­sters , sit back and watch.
Like flies to feces they con­verge diss­ing the cops and glo­ri­fy­ing the gangsters.

Is our coun­try now a coun­try of major­i­ty crim­i­nals then?
Hard to tell, but if Transparency International is to be believed, we may have passed that tip­ping point long ago.
According to Transparency International Jamaica is ranked 83 out of 176 coun­tries; falling 14 places in the coun­try rankings.
In 2015, Jamaica ranked 69 out of 168 coun­tries. Jamaica’s CPI score is 39 out of 100… falling two points from its 2015 score of 41.
The Corruption Prevention Index ranks 176 coun­tries on a scale of 0 to 100.
Zero rep­re­sents ‘Highly Corrupt’ while 100 rep­re­sents ‘Very Clean’.

After an unprece­dent­ed 14 ¹⁄₂ years in office the PNP estab­lished a course for Jamaica.
That course was set and main­tained by Percival James Patterson and con­tin­ued by Portia Simpson Miller. That is not to say these two mis­cre­ants who served as Prime Minister, dur­ing that peri­od were the only ones respon­si­ble for the Nations path as a crime state.
Edward Seaga and lit­er­al­ly every oth­er politi­cians who entered the Parliament have con­tributed immense­ly to the present situation.

There is how­ev­er, a more seri­ous com­po­nent to whats hap­pen­ing in Jamaica. The human rights lob­by has gained incred­i­ble trac­tion over the way things gets done to the point nei­ther par­ty has the balls to deal seri­ous­ly with crime out of fear of their wrath.
The prob­lem for what­ev­er law abid­ing Jamaicans who still remain is that crime works for the mul­ti nation­al cor­po­ra­tions which keeps the econ­o­my afloat.
It also work for the local econ­o­my . Just look at the eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty which has emerged from the kill culture.
Security com­pa­nies. Funeral par­lors. Grave dig­gers. Musical bands. Masons. Sound sys­tems. Carpenters and cof­fin mak­ers are just of few which are expe­ri­enc­ing eco­nom­ic boon from the mur­der mayhem.

Nevertheless it’s the Multi National Corporations which lend mon­ey to coun­tries like Jamaica with strin­gent eco­nom­ic caveats and Usury type inter­est rates which dic­tates our policies.
They are also the ones who fund the human rights groups ‚which by the way are lit­tle more than trea­so­nous agi­ta­tors in many regards.
In the large west­ern nations ‚the homes coun­tries of the human rights agi­ta­tors, the US, Canada and Britain these agen­cies absolute­ly no power.
Lenders like the IMF the Paris Club and oth­er agen­cies which loan mon­ey to Jamaica and oth­er devel­op­ing coun­tries like our know darn well that the eco­nom­ic poli­cies they demand we adhere to inevitably lead to social unrest.

If we are able to get out act togeth­er and become eco­nom­ic sus­tain­able why would we need them?
Who would they lend to?
So now you begin to under­stand why the Inter American com­mis­sion for human rights is very pow­er­ful and influ­en­tial in small debtor nations like Jamaica, but nev­er sees a prob­lem with police killing unharmed peo­ple of col­or for no rea­son in America?
The soon­er we begin to under­stand that our prob­lems are ours to fix the way we see fit and not as some for­eign enti­ty dic­tates the bet­ter off we will be.

As a coun­try we must start by repeal­ing the inde­com act, the Bruce Golding Trojan horse to the coun­try. Begin the process of chang­ing the laws to reflect the times.
For the short term a sim­ple ban and an order to remove all zinc fences with­ing a cer­tain time, fail­ing which the Government removes them, is a start toward reduc­ing crime.
Any replace­ment wall should not be more than five feet high but may be enhanced with barbed wire or or oth­er par­ti­tion mate­r­i­al through which the police can see.
These are sim­ple yet effec­tive meth­ods Government can take right now toward reduc­ing crime in the short run while lay­ing the ground­work toward seri­ous and sus­tain­able crime reduction/​elimination which must begin now.