Lay Magistrates (JP’s) Walking Jamaica Into Failed State Status

In a con­ver­sa­tion I had with a friend yes­ter­day on the stub­born crime epi­dem­ic in Jamaica, I opined that the prob­lem with our small coun­try is the fact that there is such a high tol­er­ance for crim­i­nal behav­ior and the coun­try is deemed to be 84% cor­rupt.
We can ignore the num­bers and pre­tend that we are a first world coun­try. We may even sub­scribe to the inane the­o­ry prof­fered by the morons up at Mona that if we sim­ply guar­an­tee killers rights crime will disappear.

On the oth­er hand, while peo­ple like myself and oth­ers sim­ply want a crime-free coun­try in which chil­dren can play in peace and their par­ents can be all they can be, there may already be too many cor­rupt peo­ple for that to be a real­i­ty.
That ship may have already sailed.

Delroy Chuck the Justice Minister has placed the issue of Lay Magistrate (JP) front and cen­ter since tak­ing over that min­istry.
The way Chuck sells the Lay Magistrates pro­gramme one would walk away believ­ing it is a panacea for the nation’s crime prob­lem.
Now, for the record, I am not per­son­al­ly opposed to the (JP) pro­gram, it can be a force mul­ti­pli­er in the search for a more law-abid­ing soci­ety.
Nevertheless, the cor­ro­sive ten­ta­cles of pol­i­tics and the ever-present lure of a quick buck is more than enough to give pause to any­one when we hear the min­is­ter talk about this pro­gram.
And so now we hear that in the Montego Bay Bus park one can have any doc­u­ment val­i­dat­ed by jus­tices of the peace who are pros­ti­tut­ing their ser­vices for a drink or a lunch or two hun­dred dol­lars cash.

See sto­ry here: http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​l​e​a​d​-​s​t​o​r​i​e​s​/​2​0​1​8​1​2​1​6​/​j​o​k​i​n​g​-​j​u​s​t​i​c​e​-​j​p​s​-​i​l​l​e​g​a​l​l​y​-​c​e​r​t​i​f​y​i​n​g​-​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​s​-​s​t​r​a​n​g​e​r​s​-​m​o​b​a​y​-​bus

Now we all know the sto­ry with Justices of the peace in Jamaica but I real­ly thought that after all these years since I left law-enforce­ment the coun­try would be mov­ing for­ward not back­ward.
In speak­ing to the ZOSO issue in Montego Bay over a year ago Delroy Chuck by his own [fiat] placed Justices of the peace over the police and gave them the pow­er to decide whether crim­i­nal sus­pects could be held in cus­tody by law enforce­ment with­out the say-so of a JP.
Now I want you to imag­ine a sce­nario in any oth­er coun­try in which ordi­nary polit­i­cal hacks would be the decid­ing author­i­ty on whether crim­i­nal sus­pects may be detained over the wis­dom and author­i­ty of the police.

I spoke about the fol­ly of this move at the time, now we hear of the whole­sale sell­ing and pros­ti­tu­tion of (Governmental seal ) my these mis­cre­ant crim­i­nals parad­ing as upstand­ing citizens.

That is the rea­son why right­eous indig­na­tion at crim­i­nal con­duct comes up against such oppo­si­tion by Jamaicans.
We have a pos­si­ble sce­nario of two sit­u­a­tions. (a) either there is a silent major­i­ty of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens out there or (b) the pool is filthy and we have already lost this beau­ti­ful Island.
When we can no longer dif­fer­en­ti­ate between wrong and right when we cel­e­brate con­vict­ed felons and malign those who risk life and limb to defend oth­ers they do not know we may already be too far gone.

Look, we can talk all the shit we want to now and con­tin­ue with the pre­tense, (you know what I mean with your faux patri­o­tism)?
But when the rub­ber meets the road, every­one in Jamaica val­ues the abil­i­ty to trav­el out­side the small 4’411 square mile Island.
So set aside your bull­shit patri­o­tism and rec­og­nize these facts.
When the International com­mu­ni­ty has no faith in the doc­u­ments signed by the Government about who you are, or your crim­i­nal his­to­ry they close their doors.
When they close their doors our coun­try essen­tial­ly becomes a failed state and your pre­ten­tious ass­es stay put where you are.
That’s what’s at stake here.