Plug This Loophole Now.…

There are some things which the police can do and there are others the Government can do . Of course there are things which the Government and the police can do better together . What is required though is leadership.

According to the Jamaica Observer the Westmoreland police are now in the cus­tody of over 1,000 motor­cy­cles, nei­ther licensed nor insured, more than 600 of which have been removed from the streets since the start of this year.
Additionally over 200 oth­er vehi­cles, includ­ing cars and trucks, have been seized this year, with over 300 indi­vid­u­als charged for breach­es of the Road Traffic Act over the period.
And 30.000 tick­ets were hand­ed out to errant motorists. Clearly this has not worked.

Commanding offi­cer for the Parish Deputy Superintendent David White report­ed that oper­a­tors of the motor­cy­cles, a num­ber of whom are play­ers in the lot­to scam, pur­chase oth­er bikes instead of tak­ing the nec­es­sary steps to repos­sess those con­fis­cat­ed by the police. “A lot of scam­ming is involved, so they can afford to pur­chase more. If we seize one, they do not come back for it, they just pur­chase a new one,” DSP Whyte argued. “They have easy access to pur­chas­ing them because it doesn’t require much to buy them; they [bik­ers] just go and pur­chase them. Quite a num­ber of them don’t even have a driver’s licence to dri­ve the bikes. A num­ber of them can­not read or write.”

This fol­lowed close­ly on the heels of sim­i­lar com­ments recent­ly by com­mand­ing offi­cer for Saint Ann Superintendent Wayne Cameron that many dri­vers can­not read or write.

For decades it has been an open secret that the Government Agency which grants dri­vers licences is a cesspool of cor­rup­tion and graft. Despite this there has been zero Investigations toward root­ing out the cor­rup­tion there. Literally every Jamaican knows that their abil­i­ty to be a safe dri­ver will not get them a dri­ver’s licence, a fat wal­let will.
As the police bemoan this car­nage on the road the hier­ar­chy of the force must take full respon­si­bil­i­ty for it’s gross abdi­ca­tion of it’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to root out crime using sim­ple inves­tiga­tive tech­niques. This nev­er required much more than a sim­ple audio record­ing device and the will to pros­e­cute crim­i­nal examiners.

Superintendent White made one poignant obser­va­tion how­ev­er ‚“They have easy access to pur­chas­ing them [bikes]because it doesn’t require much to buy them.”. ..
Clearly the tick­et­ing blitz is not work­ing ‚con­fis­cat­ing the motor­cy­cles is not work­ing because the offend­ers are flush with money .
This is where the Government must plug this loop­hole real quick , it’s not rock­et science .

It does not require much think­ing to draft leg­is­la­tion mak­ing it impos­si­ble to pur­chase a motor vehi­cle of any kind with­out a valid dri­vers licence . Also include seri­ous penal­ty for any­one who pur­chase a vehi­cle of any kind for some­one who does not have a valid dri­vers licence. Also attach seri­ous puni­tive sanc­tion for any­one who pur­chas­es a motor vehi­cle for oth­ers who engage in crim­i­nal con­duct. Essentially tying togeth­er all of the oper­at­ing parts as one crim­i­nal empire as the American Rico statute does.
If the coun­try is seri­ous about crime it must act now on this mat­ter in the way outlined .
Jamaican politi­cians in the par­lia­ment has tra­di­tion­al­ly left the police on it’s own to do an impos­si­ble task . Here is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for this admin­is­tra­tion to plug this loop­hole now.
The politi­cians of both polit­i­cal par­ties can­not con­tin­ue to sit on their hands and expect crime to go away with­out doing what they are elect­ed to do, which is to secure the nation.