Lets Bring A Different Approach To Policing In Jamaica’s Urban Ghettos,.

I’m not sure what type of method­ol­o­gy the Jamaica Constabulary Force is using in it’s attempt to con­tain and sup­press crime in Jamaica’s inner cities.
What I do know is that they aren’t working.
I under­stand the chal­lenges fac­ing the police and they are many and var­ied chief among which are.
♦ The pre­ten­tious nature of Jamaican up-town tap­pa­naris[sic] to inject them­selves into every­thing the police does , sole­ly to find fault. We Jamaicans know how to do every­one’s job but our own.
♦ Lack of resources and sup­port from the Government to effec­tive­ly get the job done.
♦ The propen­si­ty of inner city dwellers to push back against law enforce­ment even though they derive the most ben­e­fit from prop­er law enforcement.
♦A judi­cial sys­tem hos­tile to law enforce­ment, prob­a­bly found nowhere else in the world.
♦ A per­va­sive cul­ture of anti-law enforcement.
♦ Lack of ongo­ing train­ing and logis­ti­cal support.
♦ Low and inad­e­quate wages and remu­ner­a­tion for the extra work and the haz­ard offi­cers face.
♦ Dealing with an over­sight Agency which places itself in the posi­tion of Savior but brings pre­cious lit­tle if any­thing to the table.

Yes it is dif­fi­cult being a police offi­cer in Jamaica, I know for a fact many offi­cers would be out if the oppor­tu­ni­ty pre­sent­ed itself.
Officers are large­ly in it now for the lit­tle stipend they receive 12 times a year.
Morale is at all time lows.
Esprit de corps is non-exis­tent, a thing of the past.
They risk their lives for a cor­rupt , Administration which refus­es to rec­og­nize their sacrifice.
They risk their lives for a peo­ple total­ly unde­serv­ing of the sac­ri­fice they make.

I am not anti-police, I have been in the trench­es , I have fought along­side many still serv­ing includ­ing SSP Cornwall (big­ga) Ford , a man who was senior to me and whom I still have the utmost respect for as a seri­ous crime fight­er to this day.
Senior Superintendent Ford is now the Commanding Officer in charge of Western Kingston. This Command means Ford has come full cir­cle as a young man who hails from right there in Hannah Town.
Ford is a son of the soil, he knows the com­mu­ni­ty inside out , not just as a police offi­cer but as a kid who tra­versed the lanes and alley-ways as all lit­tle boys do.
Understanding the psy­chol­o­gy of the com­mu­ni­ty is not a prob­lem then for Ford.

As vio­lence con­tin­ue to plague com­mu­ni­ties in west Kingston, Schools are forced to keep chil­dren inside out of fear for their lives. Educators lament chil­dren are trau­ma­tized at the con­stant sound of gun­shots. As a result they are forced to hun­ker down as if in a war zone.
How can Jamaica expect to suc­ceed as a Nation if it’s chil­dren are trau­ma­tized. Kids go to School not know­ing when a stray bul­let with their name on it will hit?
These are the con­di­tions we read about and con­demn in Gaza and the West Bank. We can­not allow this bunker real­i­ty to con­tin­ue to be par for the course any longer.

I am left won­der­ing whether the cur­rent sys­tem the police is employ­ing of putting out fires may not be con­tribut­ing to the problem?
Criminals are oppor­tunis­tic Vultures. They will push the enve­lope of oppor­tunism to the extent they are con­vinced they will pre­vail with­out con­se­quence. In many instances the strat­e­gy of the Police has been and still remain high­ly predictable.
It may be time for the Police to adopt a grid approach to con­tain­ing crime.
Outside in , rather than inside out.

This means using every sin­gle iota of resource avail­able to posi­tion cops strate­gi­cal­ly around trou­ble spots.
This means very few offi­cers at police stations.
This means bring­ing the assets of the Defense Force into the mix. We won’t be fight­ing Cuba any­time soon we don’t need troops and vehi­cles lay­ing around idle.
This means cut­ting off poten­tial escape routes includ­ing gul­lies and drains.
As soon as some­one fires a gun the out­er cir­cle clos­es until the offender/​s are iso­lat­ed , cut off, arrest­ed or tak­en out.
When you negate the chances of escape you change behaviors.
It’s time to stop dash­ing to scenes of crime after the fact. Criminals under­stand that is what Police do, they have no fear they know the areas , they know the topography.
Lets bring a dif­fer­ent approach to polic­ing in Jamaica’s urban ghettos,.