Maybe Too Many People Are Eating From Crime So The Authorities Won’t Fix It…

It seems almost point­less to talk about a sin­gle inci­dent of vio­lence in Jamaica these days; truth­ful­ly, it has been that way for decades. The sad real­i­ty is that Jamaica con­tin­ues to devolve into a total­ly law­less soci­ety; vio­lence is becom­ing the only con­flict res­o­lu­tion tool uti­lized by the people.
This phe­nom­e­non has become so accept­ed as part of the Jamaican cul­ture that even peo­ple opposed to law-break­ing imme­di­ate­ly default to join­ing in chop­ping, stab­bing, or drop­ping a large rock on the head of some­one they sus­pect may have com­mit­ted a seri­ous crime in their community.
And so we must seri­ous­ly con­sid­er why cit­i­zens take the law into their own hands. Ultimately, the law is always in the hands of the peo­ple. They vol­un­tar­i­ly agree to empow­er cer­tain enti­ties, i.e., the police, pros­e­cu­tors, and the courts, to act on their behalf. When they reach the point where they believe those they empow­er to act are not act­ing accord­ing to their wish­es, they revert to jun­gle justice.

The break­down of law and order in soci­eties stems inex­orably from the fail­ure of the state to deliv­er time­ly jus­tice in the courts.
It is impor­tant not to view this as pure­ly a polic­ing issue, as the police are only one cog in the wheel of justice.
The job of elect­ed offi­cials is to pass laws that are com­pas­sion­ate but strong enough to act as deter­rents to crim­i­nal conduct.
It is up to those elect­ed to cre­ate, train, and main­tain a com­pe­tent police depart­ment to hire enough com­pe­tent pros­e­cu­tors, judges, and sup­port staff to effec­tu­ate the smooth run­ning of the crim­i­nal jus­tice food chain.
The gov­ern­ment also has a duty to build pris­ons, staff them and ensure that those held in them are treat­ed fair­ly but not allowed priv­i­leges like record­ing music.
If there is a sit­u­a­tion in which an artiste is allowed record or a writer is allowed to write a book, all pro­ceeds from those endeav­ors should be giv­en to the vic­tims of their violence.
We must get away from being a soci­ety that rewards bad behav­ior. We must become a soci­ety of law so direct and no-non­sense that makes would-be offend­ers think twice about break­ing them.
Laws are guardrails that hold peo­ple from indulging their worst instincts; with­out them, we have .……well, we have Jamaica.

Whether it’s a woman pulling out a pair of scis­sors to stab a secu­ri­ty guard doing his job at the entrance of a school or a guy who guns down inno­cent men, women, and chil­dren, we must rec­og­nize the mind­set for what it is.
Why did the woman have a pair of scis­sors arguably in her bosom?
The sim­ple answer is that she intend­ed to use it at the first sign of con­flict, as she did. The penal­ties for such actions should be so severe that future assailants like the one at the Herbert Morrison Technical High School last Friday would nev­er pick up the pair of scis­sors in the first instance.
Some will argue that she may have been car­ry­ing the scis­sors as a defen­sive tool, and those argu­ments are negat­ed by the fact that she decid­ed to use vio­lence in a sit­u­a­tion, even when she was clear­ly wrong.
If we con­tin­ue to acqui­esce to those argu­ments, we become like a dog chas­ing its tail…
We must estab­lish clear demar­ca­tion lines that make it clear that vio­lence of any kind will be met with swift and deci­sive consequences.
Those not deterred by tough laws should have many years of hard labor to con­sid­er the con­se­quences of their actions.
We can­not con­tin­ue as a soci­ety to pla­cate crim­i­nals. As a soci­ety, Jamaica has become a laugh­ing stock for its inabil­i­ty to do the sim­ple things to cur­tail vio­lent crime.

Rather than strength­en the crim­i­nal jus­tice infra­struc­ture, the gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to pla­cate and pon­tif­i­cate about oth­er things that are far less con­se­quen­tial. The most impor­tant func­tion of gov­ern­ment is the secu­ri­ty of the people.
Fail at that, and hard­ly any­thing else mat­ters. Jamaicans can­not be all they can be in the present crime-infest­ed envi­ron­ment and lack of accountability.
The coun­try has con­tin­ued to lose its best and bright­est peo­ple from as far back as the ear­ly 1970s, nurs­es, doc­tors, police offi­cers, and teach­ers; as soon as they get a visa, they are gone.
We can delude our­selves into believ­ing they are leav­ing because they are only paid unliv­able wages. The real­i­ty is that the wages they are paid are a direct result of crime and violence…
Jamaica can­not attract the lev­el of pri­vate sec­tor invest­ment, return­ing res­i­dents, and oth­er entre­pre­neur­ial endeav­ors that would gen­er­ate tax rev­enues and employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties to make our young peo­ple stay.
It is so because of one issue and one issue only, the astro­nom­i­cal lev­els of vio­lent crimes and the gov­ern­men­t’s inabil­i­ty and unwill­ing­ness to do any­thing mean­ing­ful about it.
No coun­try can leg­is­late on crime while lis­ten­ing to tri­al lawyers and so-called human rights advo­cates. Both of those groups of peo­ple are rel­e­vant because of crime and criminals.
Legislate real con­se­quences for vio­lent crimes and watch the dif­fer­ence. Or are we too far gone to fix it?
Maybe too many peo­ple are eat­ing from crime; it is no longer a con­cern to the authorities.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.