MENTALLY BANKRUPT ON CRIME:

As major crimes con­tin­ue to be a seri­ous issue in Jamaica, the gov­ern­ment con­tin­ue to flail away half-heart­ed­ly seem­ing­ly bereft of any clue of what needs to be done to effec­tive­ly fix this cancer.

So what does the Portia Simpson Miller admin­is­tra­tion do? They announced the for­ma­tion of anoth­er squad with­in the Police force.

National Security Minister Peter Bunting:

I have fol­lowed devel­op­ments close­ly, both with­in the police depart­ment and the gov­ern­ment on a whole, as it relates to secu­ri­ty mat­ters, or should I say the lack there­of ? At this time all I can say to min­is­ter Bunting is, “mis­ter Minister are you serious”?

In recent times there have been numer­ous squads,mister min­is­ter what will anoth­er squad do that the oth­ers haven’t attempt­ed or done?

Flying squad.

Ranger squad.

Eradication squad.

OCID squad.

Crime man­age­ment unit.

Street crimes Unit.

Operation Kingfish.

And now MOCA, Major Organized Crime and Anti Corruption task Force. Mister Minister, I like a Moca every now and then but this is not the time to have a nice bev­er­age. On a seri­ous note though, it seem that the Portia Simpson Miller is not aware of the old adage “the def­i­n­i­tion of a fool is, doing the same thing and expect­ing a dif­fer­ent result” .

As I have writ­ten in every forum and in these blogs, over and over, and over, the solu­tion can­not be about any of the following.

NO’s

The for­ma­tion of more squads with­in the same inept police force.

Putting more cops on the streets, impor­tant though that may be.

Arresting more crim­i­nals, so they walk right back through the revolv­ing door.

Arming the police force more, impor­tant though that may be.

Having more and more police over-sight agen­cies, impor­tant though that may be.

CONVERSELY.

What is need­ed are clear­ly craft­ed laws which seri­ous­ly mil­i­tates against crime. Laws which have penal­ties that leaves no ambi­gu­i­ty, but puts crim­i­nals away for extend­ed peri­ods of time com­men­su­rate with the crime they commit.

Fixing the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, which now over­whelm­ing­ly favors crim­i­nals and dirty defense lawyers.

Have truth in sen­tenc­ing, which removes dis­cre­tion from the coun­try’s far-left lean­ing lib­er­al judges for cer­tain cat­e­gories of crimes. This reduces or elim­i­nates their abil­i­ties to seek out ways to return crim­i­nals to the streets.

Effectively train and equip the police force in intel­li­gence gath­er­ing, foren­sics, and the admin­is­tra­tion of prop­er inter­na­tion­al police pro­ce­dures and protocols.

What we are forced to con­clude is that as we are used to see­ing this is just anoth­er attempt by polit­i­cal admin­is­tra­tions to kick the prover­bial can down the road.

This PNP admin­is­tra­tion came to office after the elec­tions of December 29^th 2011, after 4 years in oppo­si­tion, one would have thought it fair to assume they must have had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to get a grasp of what ails the country.

Yet they did not table one piece of leg­is­la­tion, even after the first 100 days. Most duly elect­ed gov­ern­ments in oth­er coun­tries strive to accom­plish a broad raft of leg­isla­tive accom­plish­ments with­in the first 100 days of tak­ing office, if not for any­thing but for brag­ging rights.

The Portia Simpson Miller admin­is­tra­tion came to office with noth­ing, they sim­ply took pow­er. With this par­ty, it is, as it has always been, all about hold­ing state power.

They have lied about the crash pro­gramme (JEEP). They lied about rolling back tax­es on elec­tric­i­ty, in fact they increased tax­es on elec­tric­i­ty. They lied about the size of their cab­i­net, God knows what is left for them to lie about.

The gullible vot­ers have once again been tak­en for a ride, as they have been on so many oth­er pre­vi­ous occa­sions. The lat­est cha­rade is MOCA.

Any stick which forms a new par­a­digm as it relates to crime and pun­ish­ment , must be accom­pa­nied by a rig­or­ous and vibrant pro­gramme of car­rots. It can­not only be puni­tive. My expe­ri­ences with Jamaican youths who emi­grate is that they are no dif­fer­ent from any oth­er young peo­ple for the most part. They have the same dreams and aspi­ra­tions of any oth­er group of young peo­ple. The same dreams and aspi­ra­tions I had when I was their age. I mar­vel at the thought of how many young men have been lost because they have lit­er­al­ly been forced into a life of crime out of necessity.

Understanding that there are no mag­ic bul­lets, no panacea for any prob­lem , I am painful­ly aware of the lim­i­ta­tions of gov­ern­ments as it relates to the deliv­ery of ser­vices. This is not a Jamaican prob­lem, it is a glob­al one, it how­ev­er does not excuse a gov­ern­ment from the pri­ma­cy of its func­tion, that of pro­vid­ing secu­ri­ty to its peo­ple, as a result of gross incom­pe­tence and dere­lic­tion of duty.

Governments, to include that which obtains in Jamaica, can­not any longer occu­py office just to secure and feath­er their nests, this kind of fal­la­cy is no longer accept­able and will not be tol­er­at­ed as is evi­denced in places like Egypt, Libya, and now Syria. These are coun­tries to which the word Democracy was alien. Though they are not yet shin­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic bea­cons on a hill, they cer­tain­ly have tak­en their futures into their own hands and over­turned thou­sands of years of oppres­sive tyranny.

Jamaica beware.

No longer will polit­i­cal par­ties and would be lead­ers, be allowed to fat­ten them­selves at the expense of the 99%. Electorates are now far more sophis­ti­cat­ed. It behoves the present cor­rupt regime in pow­er in Jamaica to take note, fail­ing which, their ill-con­ceived notion that “Jamaica is PNP coun­try” will fast become a grave misnomer.

Fix crime in Jamaica the coun­try’s prob­lems are half solved.

It’s that simple.