KUDOS TO BARBADOS:

Two pieces of news caught my eyes in the Jamaica Gleaner today Tuesday November 19^th, thought it was worth com­ment­ing and get­ting a feed-back from you.

1) Dead Wrong: Security Expert Says Police Not Aiming At Right Target To Buck Murder Trend. As dead­ly gang vio­lence con­tin­ues to rage across the island, leav­ing hun­dreds dead since the start of the year, a promi­nent secu­ri­ty con­sul­tant is sug­gest­ing that the author­i­ties are focus­ing on the wrong tar­gets in their bid to break the back of vicious crim­i­nal­i­ty in many com­mu­ni­ties.http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​3​1​1​1​9​/​l​e​a​d​/​l​e​a​d​1​.​h​tml

2)‘Mind Your Own Business And Look At Rot In Jamaica’ — Bajan Minister Blasts Gleaner For ‘Political Undertones’. A BARBADOS gov­ern­ment min­is­ter has launched a scathing attack on a Sunday Gleaner edi­to­r­i­al, telling the news­pa­per to take its nose out of Bajan affairs and con­cen­trate on the “rot going on in Jamaica”.http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​3​1​1​1​9​/​l​e​a​d​/​l​e​a​d​2​.​h​tml.

Smith

I will attempt to be brief in my sum­ma­tion of both Articles which I believe are inter-con­nect­ed though not relat­ed. A Jamaican secu­ri­ty expert[sic] argues that the coun­try is look­ing in the wrong places to cur­tail gang activ­i­ty. Robert Finzi-Smith believes hunger is the dri­ving force caus­ing gang activ­i­ty across the coun­try . He coun­ters that though the police have been heavy-hand­ed with gangs and there was a reduc­tion of gang relat­ed crimes it seems those gains are being reversed. Robert Finzi-Smith’s claim to expert-fame is con­sul­tant on crime con­trol who serves as, among oth­er things, direc­tor of safe­ty and secu­ri­ty at the University of Technology.

Danville Inniss

Now to the oth­er sto­ry, The Gleaner Editorial board came under harsh crit­i­cisms from a Minister of Government in the Island Nation of Barbados. Bajan Minister of Industry and International Business Donville Inniss exco­ri­at­ed the Gleaner Editorial page, telling them mind your own busi­ness and look at the rot going on in Jamaica. Barbados is in good hands. The Gleaner’s Editorial page is used to berat­ing Jamaican law enforce­ment, so nat­u­ral­ly it felt at lib­er­ty to lev­el harsh crit­i­cisms at the Royal Barbados Police Force for bring­ing charges against two senior staff mem­bers at theNation news­pa­per over a recent publication”.The pub­li­ca­tion was of two 14 year olds stu­dents hav­ing sex at school.

Bajan author­i­ties have con­fis­cat­ed the trav­el doc­u­ments from the two Journalists. First let me say that even though I believe fun­da­men­tal­ly in free speech and the right of a free press, I also under­stand that each coun­try’s laws are dif­fer­ent. The Gleaner not exposed to any real­i­ties but that which obtains in Jamaica , pro­ceed­ed to blast that coun­try’s police sug­gest­ing that the arrests were polit­i­cal. Well they got told where to go. There is no love lost between the two coun­tries , recent­ly the Shanice Myrie case exposed old wounds. Simply put, Bajans respect the rule of law, they fun­da­men­tal­ly believe in order most Jamaicans don’t. Hence Barbados is tops in edu­ca­tion , it’s econ­o­my is doing pret­ty well and crime is low. Now grant­ed there is a dis­tinct size and pop­u­la­tion dif­fer­ence between the two Islands, Jamaica could take a page from Barbados’ book on how to devel­op a country.

So while a Jamaican glo­ri­fied secu­ri­ty guard tells the police and the nation why they are los­ing the fight against gangs. And while the edi­to­r­i­al page of the Gleaner con­sis­tent­ly lends its voice to the anti-police cho­rus, author­i­ties in Barbadoes stand solid­ly behind their law-enforce­ment pro­fes­sion­als. That is where the prob­lem lies . Not because peo­ple are hungry.