Public Defender Could Have Simply Reported The Truth

Crime should not be politi­cized.
Why, because it affects us all and the con­se­quences it impos­es on soci­ety are far too con­se­quen­tial for us to be pulling in dif­fer­ent direc­tions on it.
One would think that with that in mind, the issue of how to com­bat crime effec­tive­ly would take on an a‑political tone and demeanor.
Not so, it is too shiny an object for politi­cians to ignore when it comes to seek­ing polit­i­cal mileage. 
Never mind that the prob­lem is not new, that the prob­lem is also a major issue when each polit­i­cal par­ty is in office.
As soon as a par­ty is out of office the oth­er side becomes the worst ever on the issue.

Now, despite the fore­gone, It is nev­er­the­less under­stood that polit­i­cal par­ties are not reli­gious insti­tu­tions.
In fact, since we can’t even place our trust in reli­gious insti­tu­tions we clear­ly can­not place our trust in any insti­tu­tions, least of all, rapa­cious pow­er-hun­gry polit­i­cal par­ties.
The Holness Administration has tak­en some steps, albeit, ones which can­not be the extent of the admin­is­tra­tion’s long-term strat­e­gy on crime.
Those steps include the Creation of Zones Of Special Operations (ZOSO), in tar­get­ed areas and the oft-cri­tiqued lim­it­ed states of emergencies(SOE’s) in a few oth­ers.
Like oth­ers, I too have opined on both initiatives. 

My take is that nei­ther ini­tia­tive can be the objec­tive but a means to an end.
Simply put, I believe that the pol­i­cy on crime should be far more bush-clear­ing with less dec­o­rat­ing.
Now is the time that the dirty work of erad­i­cat­ing dan­ger­ous mur­der­ers from our midst must be done before installing a long-term crime pol­i­cy. 
What is irrefutable, is that the tem­po­rary mea­sures insti­tut­ed by the admin­is­tra­tion are hav­ing some mea­sure of suc­cess.
If only one inno­cent life is saved by these mea­sures, there is no argu­ment to be made(outside con­sti­tu­tion­al lim­its) for their dis­con­tin­u­a­tion, much less when hun­dreds of lives are being saved.

Having a polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion make hay out of crime is to be expect­ed.
Having the People’s National Party(PNP) try to cre­ate lever­age is nau­se­at­ing, con­sid­er­ing that it was only a cou­ple years ago, a clue­less and exas­per­at­ed Minister of National Security Peter Bunting, threw up his hands and declared that the only thing which can save Jamaica from its present crime epi­dem­ic was “divine inter­ven­tion.“
Now I too under­stand the pow­er of “divine inter­ven­tion,” but I’m also mind­ful that faith with­out works is dead and as Paul said in Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ that strength­ens me”.
We ask for his help then get up and do what we can to fix our sit­u­a­tions. That is what the Government is doing.
The polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion should seek lever­age else­where and shun the pop­ulism it has used since its incep­tion as a polit­i­cal par­ty.
For the good of the nation, no one should want to see the admin­is­tra­tion fail on crime.
The cost is sim­ply too great.

Since the cost in blood and trea­sure is too great to play games, it is impor­tant that we have all hands on deck , yes, admin­is­tra­tion and oppo­si­tion alike.
What is incon­ceiv­able and must not be tol­er­at­ed are moles and ter­mites with­in the gov­ern­men­tal struc­ture, active­ly eat­ing away at the foun­da­tions.
I could go on and on about how a house divid­ed against itself can­not stand and any num­ber of oth­er clich­es.
But there is no need to state the obvi­ous. If there are per­sons with­in the Government who are paid with tax dol­lars and are work­ing duplic­i­tous­ly to thwart any aspect of the Government’s objec­tive it is impor­tant that they are removed in the inter­est of the country.

It is not out of the ordi­nary that employ­ees in a demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­ern­ment would opine on poli­cies they may not like.
Sometimes we put our foot in our mouths when we tread in areas we do not under­stand.
So I under­stood then, how the Public Defender could have put her foot in her mouth when she pre­ma­ture­ly called for an end to the state of emer­gency in Saint James in April of this year.
Like many Jamaicans, the argu­ments put for­ward by the Public Defender are the same.
We real­ly do not like scrap­ing up large groups of young men and detain­ing them as a crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy.
Nevertheless, those con­cerns have to be bal­anced with the greater urgency of stop­ping the wan­ton loss of life.
See [PD’s call here]
http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​l​e​a​d​-​s​t​o​r​i​e​s​/​2​0​1​8​0​4​1​7​/​s​t​-​j​a​m​e​s​-​s​t​a​t​e​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​e​m​e​r​g​e​n​c​y​-​m​u​s​t​-​e​n​d​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​d​e​f​e​ner

Unfortunately, the Public Defender did not even both­er to demon­strate that she under­stood, let alone care about the blood­shed.
Her sin­gu­lar focus was on the young men who may or may not be guilty of any crimes, who are picked up and have to suf­fer the indig­ni­ty of spend­ing a cou­ple of days in jail.
None of us want this to be the way we fight crime, but some­times our hand is all we have to plug the dike.
I nev­er got the impres­sion that offi­cials like Arlene Harrison-Henry, Earl Witter before her, Terrence Williams of INDECOM and oth­ers sees them­selves as arms of the gov­ern­ment which ought to work cohe­sive­ly for the greater good of the gov­ern­men­t’s objec­tives.
Instead, they oper­ate as parts of the gov­ern­ment which has gone rogue.
Here is what Arlene Harrison-Henry said to the media last April which clear­ly shows that by her own words she does not see her role and that of her office as part of the Government. 

Speaking of detainees…
 “You release them after spend­ing three, four and five days in cus­tody, and less than 10 per­cent have been charged. That has seri­ous con­se­quences as to whether that was law­ful,” argued Harrison Henry. “Even under a state of emer­gency, there is a min­i­mum thresh­old that [they] have to meet before[they] deprive you of your lib­er­ty. [They] have to see you behav­ing a cer­tain way or com­mit­ting an offense.”

Mrs. Harrison-Henry’s own words are demon­stra­bly clear that she views the secu­ri­ty forces (an arm of gov­ern­ment) adver­sar­i­al­ly. Even though the ill-begot­ten office she holds was unnec­es­sary, she and her staff are paid with tax dol­lars and that makes her and all employ­ees of that office sub­ject to the dic­tates of the gov­ern­ment.
She has no right to be run­ning a sep­a­rate oper­a­tion that is anti­thet­i­cal to the direc­tion in which the admin­is­tra­tion is going.
Regardless of which admin­is­tra­tion nom­i­nat­ed her to the post, if she does not sup­port the admin­is­tra­tion’s man­date she has a duty to resign.
She should not be allowed to sub­vert the pol­i­cy posi­tions of the gov­ern­ment through the use of lies and half-truths.

The shock­ing real­i­ty is that the lies and mis­in­for­ma­tion that the Public Defender tes­ti­fied to in the par­lia­ment recent­ly were total­ly un-nec­es­sary regard­less of her polit­i­cal or ide­o­log­i­cal posi­tion.
Stating the facts about what she saw truth­ful­ly did not mean that she was not doing her job.
In oth­er coun­tries lying to the par­lia­ment is at least a fir­ing offence if not a crim­i­nal one.
Lying to the nation and smear­ing the police made her office a joke.
Lying to the nation showed that she can­not be trust­ed.
The Public Defender would do all Jamaicans a favor if she did the right thing and ten­dered her res­ig­na­tion.
Failing which she should be shown the door.
Public office is about hon­or. ser­vice. self­less­ness. duty. commitment.character.
If we expect that from oth­er pub­lic offi­cials we must also ask the same of the pub­lic defend­er.
 

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