So Much Needs Changing If There Is To Be A Different Direction In Jamaica’s Crime Situation…

Excerpts from the speech Deputy Commissioner of Police Novelette Grant gave to worshipers at the Boulevard Baptist Church in St Andrew.

“Please, don’t look to me to cre­ate the world in sev­en days. I nev­er claimed to have that pow­er … . And I will not be work­ing any mir­a­cles, except that mir­a­cle comes from the peo­ple of Jamaica to renew their hearts and their minds and atti­tudes to become our broth­er’s keep­er in the truest sense of the word, by fol­low­ing the exam­ple of the Samaritan,” Grant told wor­shipers at the Boulevard Baptist Church in St Andrew.

“As we see the pos­si­bil­i­ties of 2017, stand with your nation [and] pray for renew­al of spir­it in our­selves and in our broth­ers and sis­ters and let our lights shine, please, in cul­ti­vat­ing an atti­tude of grat­i­tude,”.

“I am com­mend­ing to you, though, that you prac­tice show­ing appre­ci­a­tion for those who serve, for those who pro­tect, and for the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice that they are asked to make on our behalf and for the fam­i­lies who sup­port them, who enable them; because this was Christmas and many of us were nev­er able to be with our fam­i­lies. We were out. On Christmas Day, I was out, and they were, work­ing, work­ing, work­ing, and all they get is cuss, cuss, cuss. So can you tell them ‘thanks’ when you see them, and encour­age them?”

I thought I would high­light these excerpts because Novelette Grant and I were at the Police train­ing Academy at the same time, even though she entered and grad­u­at­ed a few months before the batch of which I was a member.
I am thrilled that a female is being con­sid­ered , even though she will not be the first woman to ever act as com­mis­sion­er of police.
More impor­tant­ly than any­thing else,Novelette Grant spoke to the sac­ri­fice, the chal­lenges offi­cers face dai­ly and the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice they some­times make.

I may be wrong , but to the best of my rec­ol­lec­tion this is the first time I have heard a senior mem­ber of the police high com­mand speak defin­i­tive­ly and explic­it­ly to those chal­lenges and plac­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty in the hands of the Jamaican peo­ple for their own security.
Novelette Grant is an accom­plished police offi­cer, I believe she should be seri­ous­ly con­sid­ered for the role in which she will be thrust.
If Andrew Holness has come to his sens­es and is final­ly pre­pared to take action against the Island killers it is impor­tant that the par­lia­ment get to work lay­ing out a leg­isla­tive frame­work for tak­ing back the streets from the heav­i­ly armed and fear­less killers who con­trol them.

Key to retak­ing our coun­try from the gangs is a repeal of the (inde­com act).
This law has been a colos­sal fail­ure except to empow­er and embold­en crim­i­nals, and feed the ego of a sin­gle indi­vid­ual whose inten­tions are to build a name for himself .
Sure the police must have appro­pri­ate over­sight. But that over­sight can­not be an antag­o­nis­tic encounter which ties the hands of police and kills their morale.
The Act should be repealed and redone the cor­rect way.

The police needs good and fair over­sight. They need prop­er and ade­quate pay and ben­e­fits. More impor­tant­ly they need leg­isla­tive sup­port , which must include judges and pros­e­cu­tors who are on the right side of the rule of law.
This means remov­ing from the hands of these crim­i­nal-friend­ly judges dis­cre­tion in sen­tenc­ing, regard­less of their howls of protest.
If there is ever going to be change in how crim­i­nals behave they can­not have allies on the bench.
Police offi­cers have long com­plained about this prob­lem from a gen­er­a­tion ago . Today it is expo­nen­tial­ly worse than it was in the 80’s and 90’s.

The courts have become a joke, the judges are far more friend­ly to the mass mur­der­ers than they are with the police and that has got to end.
The police high com­mand is also over-bloat­ed. Half of the senior corp of the Constabulary does noth­ing to earn their pay.
They should find oth­er means to make a living.
Wearing a police uni­form with­out car­ry­ing out the func­tions of an offi­cer does not make one a cop.
It’s time to cut out much of the deadwood.