In Other Countries Criminals Fear The Laws, In Jamaica The Law Fears The Criminals…

If the January 21^st Editorial in the Jamaica Observer weren’t such bull­shit, it would be wor­thy of being fea­tured on com­e­dy hour.
The sheer hypocrisy of the Editorial page drib­ble was breath­tak­ing, to put it mild­ly. “Gov’t seem­ing­ly bank­rupt of ideas on fight­ing crime.”

[After acknowl­edg­ing the lat­est “bloody week­end” in Jamaica, fea­tur­ing sev­er­al triple and dou­ble mur­ders, total­ing 25 peo­ple between January 16 and 19, the min­is­ter, for the umpteenth time, con­demned the bru­tal killers and promised yet again: “The police intend to increase activ­i­ties and we are not deterred by these kinds of brazen­ness.” In addi­tion, the secu­ri­ty min­is­ter let us know that, before the week­end slaugh­ters, mur­ders were trail­ing last year’s rate by 18.5 per­cent. To add insult to injury, Attorney General Marlene Malahoo Forte gave us this gem: “The coun­try has been call­ing on the State to act, and the State will act. The lev­el of brazen­ness and utter dis­re­gard for lives and pub­lic order can­not be accepted.”
We sup­pose that the coun­try should be com­plete­ly reas­sured by the fight­ing words of Dr. Chang and Mrs. Malahoo Forte, and we should expect the shoot­ers to be quak­ing in their boots as they scram­ble to get rid of their guns, take up law­ful employ­ment, and start going back to church. It is ridicu­lous that that is all we can expect from an Administration that con­tin­ues to bam­boo­zle with words while fail­ing to keep the coun­try safe — the most sacred duty of a Government.
The Government appears at this stage to be bank­rupt of ideas to fight crime. Well-inten­tioned as he is, Prime Minister Andrew Holness gave away the game when he did just what the much-jeered for­mer Security Minister Peter Bunting did in call­ing for divine inter­ven­tion].Jamaica Observer​.com
Read more here; http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​e​d​i​t​o​r​i​a​l​/​g​o​v​-​t​-​s​e​e​m​i​n​g​l​y​-​b​a​n​k​r​u​p​t​-​o​f​-​i​d​e​a​s​-​o​n​-​f​i​g​h​t​i​n​g​-​c​r​i​m​e​_​2​1​2​7​5​9​?​p​r​o​f​i​l​e​=​1​100

At the heart of the pick­le in which Jamaica now finds itself, lies the Pharisees who wrote the fore­gone. For decades they cheer led the lion­iz­ing of crime fig­ures, while at the same time influ­enc­ing the two crim­i­nal gangs that dou­ble as polit­i­cal par­ties, on how to water down anti-crime leg­is­la­tions. Now that crim­i­nals have the upper hand to do as they please, those same arson­ists stand there with the gas cans and lighters while crit­i­ciz­ing the fire depart­ment for not doing enough to put out the blaze.
Jamaica did not get to this stage in which all the author­i­ties can do is issue pre-writ­ten absurd state­ments of resolve; we now have an entire coun­try that was weaned on the idea that they can do as they please, rules be damned.
As a for­mer law enforce­ment offi­cer, I walked away from the JCF after a mere ⁹¹⁄₂ years because I real­ized that in addi­tion to the shit­ty pay, noth­ing that I did would make a darn dif­fer­ence because of the cul­ture of law­less­ness and cor­rup­tion in our country.
Jamaica had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate a brand new rebirth at the time of the pseu­do-Independence dec­la­ra­tion in 1962. The truth is that Britain, hav­ing emerged from the sec­ond world war, bat­tered and bro­ken, was in no posi­tion to main­tain an empire.
Jamaica did not win her inde­pen­dence; Britain was hap­py to jet­ti­son the Island as it had done oth­er colonies before jamaica.
Instead of kick­ing the old colo­nial hea­thens to the curb, and set­ting their sights on Republican state­hood, Jamaican lead­ers allowed Britain to retain con­trol of our coun­try’s sovereignty.
Almost fifty-nine (59) years lat­er, Jamaican lead­ers stead­fast­ly refuse to extri­cate them­selves from the aprons of the vicious colo­nial­ists that mur­dered, raped, and muti­lat­ed our fore-parents.

Like lead­ers across the African con­ti­nent, Asia, and Latin ‑America, they saw the end of phys­i­cal col­o­niza­tion as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to enrich them­selves. As a con­se­quence, they opt­ed for lax laws that do pre­cious lit­tle to deter crim­i­nal conduct.
Today 59-years lat­er, we are at the tip­ping point on crime; 25 peo­ple were mur­dered between January 16 and 19.
Make no mis­take about it; there is no sense of urgency with­in the pop­u­la­tion either; after all ‘peo­ple get killed everywhere.[sic]
To a large extent, the vast major­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion has no mem­o­ry of a peace­ful and tran­quil nation where the rule of law is respect­ed and applied. No one should expect that there will be any sense of urgency due to those killings; we have been there before. This has been Jamaica for a long time, it will be Jamaica for a long time to come.
This pop­u­la­tion is not fazed, this is nor­mal to them; noth­ing mat­ters as long as they are not killed, until they are.….., there is no need to wor­ry. I guess you can’t miss or appre­ci­ate what you nev­er had?
Restoring Jamaica to a peace­ful place where one can feel safe to raise a fam­i­ly will not be easy. The peo­ple would have to be reori­ent­ed, reed­u­cat­ed into under­stand­ing that they deserve bet­ter than the blood­shed and may­hem that sur­rounds them. That will not be an easy job as I inti­mat­ed ear­li­er, the major­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion may be too far gone.
Jamaicans who real­ly crave a life free from the dai­ly blood­let­ting choose to leave. It is a sad real­i­ty, for those who are unable to leave, their exis­tence becomes a dead­ly game of Russian roulette, nev­er know­ing when the round will be right­ly posi­tioned to kill.
The peo­ple who pull the trig­ger know that there is sup­port for them at every lev­el of soci­ety. Criminals fear the laws in oth­er soci­eties, in Jamaica, the law fears the criminals.

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Mike writes for thinkers.
Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.