Like The Last, This Year Will End With No Change … Unless

SCENARIO #1
Imagine being rav­en­ous­ly hun­gry yet you are close to an Ocean filled with fish but you have noth­ing with which to catch the fish. No net, no hook, no device or mate­r­i­al one could use to cre­ate a snare.
Chances are you could die from hunger right there, or you can flail away if you are able to swim and hope to catch some­thing to sat­is­fy the hunger.
Until of course the hunger pangs begin to gnaw at your gut again.

SCENARIO #2
How about being thirsty at an Oasis and you have to cross the desert, you can drink all you want from the brook but you have no con­tain­er to car­ry any of the life­giv­ing liq­uid with you?
Oh, by the way, you can’t tar­ry too long by the brook because there are some thirsty trav­el­ers who will be com­ing soon to refresh them­selves and they are car­ni­vores.
Difficult deci­sions and near impos­si­ble task if you have noth­ing with which to car­ry the water right?

Now that I have got­ten your atten­tion, I would like you to think about those two metaphors as it relates to the scourge of vio­lent crimes in our coun­try.
The moral of my con­tention is that if you do not have the tools it is almost dif­fi­cult to com­plete a task, no mat­ter how sim­ple or urgent the need.
The aver­age law-abid­ing Jamaican liv­ing in the Zones Of Special Operations and sub­ject­ed to the lim­it­ed State of Emergency would like to see those ini­tia­tives con­tin­ue.
Of course, those zones of oper­a­tions, or (ZOSO’s), as they are affec­tion­ate­ly known, (we Jamaicans are enam­ored with acronyms) requires plen­ty of human resources and mon­ey.
ZOSO’s and the State of Emergency are a great strain on the offi­cers who make them pos­si­ble. A fact which eludes both the plan­ners and the res­i­dents who are right­ly clam­or­ing for some respite from the dai­ly bloodletting.

Now as you all know there is one lit­tle prob­lem with ZOSO’s and the Limited State of Emergency declared in spe­cif­ic areas.
They can­not go on for­ev­er because they strain con­sti­tu­tion­al lim­its in some cas­es and exhaust finan­cial and human resources in oth­ers.
Additionally, when those mea­sures are insti­tut­ed in spe­cif­ic areas the pro­duc­ers of vio­lence sim­ply move to oth­er areas and we end up inex­orably look­ing like we are in a whack-a-mole sit­u­a­tion which does no good.
Since pulling up ZOSO’s and get­ting approval for insti­tut­ing a State of Emergency takes time, and since there are peo­ple in posi­tions of pow­er who val­ue the let­ter of the archa­ic con­sti­tu­tion over the lives of our cit­i­zens, it is clear that we have to find oth­er ways to deal with this cri­sis of vio­lent crimes.

There is no sil­ver bul­let with which to elim­i­nate vio­lent crimes from our midst. Dealing effec­tive­ly with crime will have to be approached method­i­cal­ly and strate­gi­cal­ly.
There is no sce­nario in which plac­ing huge amounts of secu­ri­ty per­son­nel in spe­cif­ic loca­tions will effec­tive­ly reduce crime for the long term, even if we could afford it.
Which brings us to some actu­al solu­tions which the gov­ern­ing par­ty is too timid to effec­tu­ate and the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion is too com­plic­it in its asso­ci­a­tions with crim­i­nals and their lob­bies to sup­port.
This is not to say that the gov­ern­ing par­ty does not have mem­bers who are knee deep in crim­i­nal com­plic­i­ty and col­lu­sion as well.

POINT #1
Since it is clear that the solu­tion to this prob­lem is not adding more police,(even though more police offi­cers does not hurt), and since it is clear that plac­ing huge amounts of resources in one area results in a con­fla­gra­tion of vio­lent crimes in anothe, it may be time for us to look at the issue in a holis­tic way.

POINT#2
Reading through this site will pro­vide plen­ty of solu­tions for address­ing our coun­try’s crime dilem­ma.
The prob­lem is that one par­ty is too scared to use them and the oth­er is too com­plic­it to sup­port real and mean­ing­ful crime reduc­tion ini­tia­tives.

POINT#3
The Jamaican peo­ple are cry­ing out for lead­er­ship, that much we know. It is not as if Jamaicans can­not abide by rules or laws when those rules and or laws are fol­lowed up with strong con­se­quences for break­ing them.
The hun­dreds of thou­sands, (mil­lions per­haps) of Jamaicans liv­ing in the dias­po­ra fol­low rules. When they decide to not, they pay the price.
Jamaicans at home do the things they do because they are allowed to do them.

POINT#4
Steve McGregor an Assistant Commissioner of police spoke to a group at a Stonebrook Vista return­ing res­i­dents’ meet­ing in Falmouth, Trelawny, last Sunday.
McGregor not­ed: “We have to dri­ve some fear into these young­sters, who are respon­si­ble for 95 per­cent of the mur­ders. This is so because, at this time, we have the worst set of par­ents ever in Jamaica.”
“Older par­ents were less edu­cat­ed, but they paid atten­tion to young­sters of the day. Older peo­ple have to become involved to keep the young­sters on the right track.”

That fear of which he speaks must be fear of the con­se­quences of break­ing the laws.
The leg­is­la­tion the law­mak­ers pro­pose focus­es on the pro­tec­tion of crim­i­nals rather than focus­ing on the pain of their vic­tims.
Legislations are held up to get the input of the very peo­ple the laws would bring to heel.
This is the dystopi­an hell in which law-abid­ing peo­ple find them­selves.
The rights of killers trumps their basic right to life and the abil­i­ty to live their lives in peace.

POINT#5
Both polit­i­cal par­ties have been will­ing and con­tin­u­al enablers of this trag­ic posi­tion in which the coun­try finds itself.
Every day the cri­sis deep­ens because both polit­i­cal par­ties are behold­en to over­ly influ­en­tial lob­bies which are ham­per­ing effec­tive polic­ing of the nation.
No coun­try in west­ern Europe or North America let alone in oth­er regions of the world allow rights lob­by to dic­tate to them how they secure their pop­u­la­tions.
Jamaica is the only coun­try I know of which fash­ions its laws in accor­dance with the wish­es of those who advo­cate for crim­i­nals instead of with the inter­est of the inno­cent law abid­ing pop­u­la­tion front and cen­ter.
Those who break the laws know they have the law abid­ing peo­ple by the balls and over a bar­rel.
Their polit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives are either crim­i­nals them­selves or are behold­en to the crim­i­nal lob­by.
Either way, the peo­ple are .….….I won’t say it.

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