Legislature Fails Cops And Citizens Alike…(updated)

One of the issues influ­enc­ing crime in Jamaica, out­side of the across the board dis­re­spect for the rule of law, is the inad­e­qua­cy of the laws.
In recent times this pub­li­ca­tion has point­ed to the fact that because the Government’s efforts have been more crim­i­nal than vic­tim-cen­tered, crime con­tin­ues to esca­late on the Island.
We have also point­ed out con­sis­tent­ly, that the courts are not in the fight against crime with the police,- which is basi­cal­ly left to deal with the nation’s bur­geon­ing crime rate on its own, and ham­mered for not find­ing solu­tions on its own.
We are not obliv­i­ous to the fact that at best the police are bare­ly func­tion­ing as a police force, much less to be a cred­i­ble crime-fight­ing entity. 

Jamaica’s Crime Strategies Protect Offenders Rather Than Their Victims…

We have con­sis­tent­ly argued that if we are to be a coun­try, and I say this with all seri­ous­ness, we must estab­lish a sol­id tem­plate on which the rule of law is premised.
I have always been skep­ti­cal of the sense of fraud­u­lence which has always char­ac­ter­ized the con­ver­sa­tions sur­round­ing Jamaica’s devel­op­ment.
Set aside the fake accents and the appro­pri­at­ing of things for­eign which we do not under­stand.
Jamaica’s lead­ers seem hell-bent on build­ing a house upon the sand, vul­ner­a­ble to the whims of the waves.

This Is What Jamaican Cops Are Forced To Deal With Under Holness…

For exam­ple in the arti­cle imme­di­ate­ly above we see a man claim­ing iron­i­cal­ly to be a Justice of the [Peace], while berat­ing and phys­i­cal­ly assault­ing a police offi­cer who was writ­ing him a tick­et.
The fact that the police offi­cer did not knock his teeth out and place him under arrest is a con­ver­sa­tion for anoth­er time, but in the video record­ing, the irate man can be heard say­ing that the offi­cer took too long in writ­ing him the tick­et so that he could be on his way.
Nothing jus­ti­fies berat­ing an offi­cer the way this motorist did, much less phys­i­cal­ly assault­ing a police offi­cer who has the pow­er of life and death in his hands.
Never mind the fact that he is sup­posed to be a lay Magistrate.
At the same time, we can­not ignore what he said was the source of his ire.

Is Delroy Chuck King?

We have con­sis­tent­ly point­ed to issues of this nature which cre­ates prob­lems for law enforce­ment, and undue angst for our cit­i­zens.
These are wrin­kles in the enforce­ment process which the leg­is­la­ture have a duty to iron out in an expe­di­tious man­ner.
It does not require much time to write a bill which artic­u­lates a spe­cif­ic time that police can hold a motorist in a reg­u­lar traf­fic stop, (say 20 min­utes, as some juris­dic­tions have), (unless dur­ing the stop, oth­er events emerge which neces­si­tate fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion).
Instead of the crass rep­re­hen­si­ble clown-show which pass­es for a leg­isla­tive process, these bills can be writ­ten and debat­ed intel­li­gent­ly and quick­ly passed into law.

Country Scapegoats Cops/​ignore Politicians And Judges Who Enable Criminals….

As for the inci­dent in which the alleged (JP) assault­ed the offi­cer, we reached out to the Justice Ministry with a view to get­ting the Minister’s feed­back on whether an inves­ti­ga­tion is in progress on this mat­ter?
We were informed that there is, but that a for­mal response will be for­ward­ed to us.
We patient­ly await the response from the Justice Minister under whose port­fo­lio Lay-Magistrates fall. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant as I point­ed out to the per­son I spoke to that last year a police offi­cer ver­bal­ly berat­ed a (JP) and he was prompt­ly suspended. 

Updated: Since this arti­cle was post­ed the Ministry of Justice has respond­ed to our inquiries :
Good after­noon Mr. Beckles.
Justice Minister Delroy Chuck has request­ed that I for­ward the fol­low­ing response to your query.
Please see response below.

It is my under­stand­ing that the mat­ter in ques­tion occurred last November. As soon as it came to my atten­tion con­tact was made with all Custodes. At the time of my response none of the Custodes have iden­ti­fied him as a Justice of the Peace. An inves­ti­ga­tion is try­ing to deter­mine the name of the indi­vid­ual, and ver­i­fy if he is in fact a JP? His con­duct is quite rep­re­hen­si­ble. If he’s a JP appro­pri­ate action will be tak­en.
N.B The Justice Minister can­not take action against a Lay Magistrate or a JP. Sent on behalf of Justice Minister Delroy Chuck.
Kind Regards

We thank the Minister and his Ministry for his kind and quick response.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, a busi­ness own­er, avid researcher, and blog­ger. 
He is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.