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The JLPNP On Crime!

Below are two excerpts from the man­i­festos of the Jamaica Labor par­ty and the People’s National Party of Jamaica as usu­al we choose to show you the evi­dence tell you what we think , but we also under­stand that you are much smarter and much more capa­ble of assess­ing the infor­ma­tion, and inform­ing your­selves. This infor­ma­tion mas made pos­si­ble by the Jamaica Observer​.com.

THE JLP ON CRIME

IN putting for­ward its plan to con­tin­ue its dri­ve to reduce crime, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) not­ed that high crime has cre­at­ed a soci­ety bogged down by fear to the point of being under pro­duc­tive and less patri­ot­ic. It also point­ed to crime cre­at­ing an atmos­phere that has put off for­eign vis­i­tors and investors. Claiming cred­it for a 36 per cent reduc­tion in major crimes since 2007, the JLP said it had already begun improv­ing the effec­tive­ness of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) by improv­ing its mobil­i­ty; enhanc­ing the phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture and strength­en­ing its human resource capac­i­ty and effec­tive­ness. It also said it had been enhanc­ing the Ministry of National Security’s pro­gramme for social inter­ven­tion, crime pre­ven­tion and com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty since it took office. The JLP admin­is­tra­tion has iden­ti­fied 10 ini­tia­tives on which it intends to focus in its next term, should it be returned to office at the polls. Efforts will be focused on deep­en­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing includ­ing increas­ing police work­ing part­ner­ships with res­i­dents, the pri­vate sec­tor, schools, tourism and farm­ers. There will also be greater police involve­ment in diver­sion and man­age­ment of youth at risk of offend­ing, youth deemed uncon­trol­lable, youth oper­at­ing at the low­er lev­els of gangs or who have com­mit­ted low-lev­el offences, the man­i­festo sets out. Another pil­lar of the JLP’s anti-crime plan will be the estab­lish­ment of what it calls “resourced mul­ti-agency response organ­i­sa­tion­al net­works, focused on crime pre­ven­tion and com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty and capa­ble of sup­port­ing social inter­ven­tion and oth­er crime pre­ven­tion ini­tia­tives, pri­mar­i­ly at the parish lev­el”. The JLP says it will work to increase cit­i­zens’ trust in the police even as it con­tin­ues its trans­for­ma­tion of the cul­ture of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) through the cul­ture change com­mit­tees and work­shops set up ear­li­er this year. Additionally, the par­ty says it intends to over­see a merg­er of the Private Security Regulations Authority (PSRA) and the Firearms Licensing Authority (FLA), a rec­om­men­da­tion of the Public Sector Transformation Programme. The Police Services Commission (PSC) and the Police Civilian Oversight Authority (PCOA) are also to be merged, cre­at­ing a new Police Authority. “This new arrange­ment will also see the com­mis­sion­er of police (while main­tain­ing ‘oper­a­tional respon­si­bil­i­ty’) being held to account for the exer­cise of his func­tions and those ser­vices the police force pro­vides to the pub­lic,” the JLP man­i­festo out­lines. This new enti­ty will enjoy the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tion afford­ed to the present Police Services Commission. The author­i­ty will also be respon­si­ble for mon­i­tor­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of poli­cies relat­ing to the man­age­ment of the police force and the man­age­ment and use of finan­cial and oth­er resources. It will, in addi­tion, mon­i­tor and assess the per­for­mance of the police and their effec­tive­ness. In terms of bor­der secu­ri­ty, a sec­ond-term JLP admin­is­tra­tion would expand the Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA) Border Management System and strength­en the agen­cy’s inves­tiga­tive capac­i­ty to end cor­rup­tion in the cit­i­zen­ship appli­ca­tion process. The JLP is also promis­ing to strength­en the Department of Correctional Services (DCS); reg­u­lar­is­ing the trans­fer of respon­si­bil­i­ty of remand from the JCF to the DCS in lock-ups. The mobil­i­ty of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) is to be strength­ened by the pro­cure­ment of troop car­ri­ers, patrol vehi­cles, admin­is­tra­tive vehi­cles and util­i­ty-type vehi­cles of which an esti­mat­ed 200 are need­ed. The Maritime Awareness and Response Capabilities of the JDF will also be boosted.

The PNP on Crime

THE Opposition People’s National Party (PNP), if giv­en the man­date to gov­ern the coun­try come Thursday, has said it will pur­sue a three-pronged approach to nation­al secu­ri­ty in order to effec­tive­ly address the scourge of vio­lent crime​.It cit­ed in its man­i­festo, pre­sent­ed two weeks ago, that for many years Jamaicans have lived under the threat of vio­lence and crim­i­nal­i­ty on a scale that has neg­a­tive­ly impact­ed the nation­al psy­che and stymied eco­nom­ic growth and invest­ment. The par­ty said it intends to try to fix that by focussing on three areas: mak­ing insti­tu­tion­al improve­ments, tar­get­ing organ­ised crime, and fos­ter­ing greater trust of law enforce­ment among the pop­u­lace. Specifically, a future PNP Government, the par­ty says, will strength­en the human and insti­tu­tion­al capac­i­ty of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) with the inten­tion of ensur­ing it main­tains high pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards. The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) is also to be a major focal point for a PNP admin­is­tra­tion which has said it is already push­ing for the estab­lish­ment of a Police Management Authority (PMA). This new body is intend­ed to be a statu­to­ry author­i­ty with juris­dic­tion over the con­sti­tu­tion, man­age­ment, admin­is­tra­tion and reg­u­la­tion of the police force. The PNP not­ed that set­ting up this new agency will require the repeal of the Jamaica Constabulary Force Act, the Special Constables Act and the District Constables Act. Other leg­isla­tive mea­sures will need to be under­tak­en in order to trans­fer the func­tions of the Police Services Commission and the Police Civilian Oversight Authority to the PMA. This move is part of plans the Opposition says it has to fur­ther mod­ernise the police force. This mod­erni­sa­tion will entail tar­get­ing organ­ised crime which, accord­ing to its man­i­festo, is some­thing the PNP said it has a proven track record of fight­ing. The par­ty point­ed to what it said were “some high­ly pub­li­cised inter­dic­tions and inter­ven­tions, with­out any exter­nal prompt­ing”. “In recog­nis­ing the typ­i­cal transna­tion­al char­ac­ter of organ­ised crime, the pre­vi­ous PNP Government embarked on a delib­er­ate pol­i­cy of co-oper­a­tion between local law enforce­ment bod­ies and inter­na­tion­al enforce­ment part­ners, to ensure the extra­di­tion of crim­i­nal ‘dons’ to coun­tries with evi­den­tial­ly stronger juris­dic­tion­al claims against them,” the man­i­festo reads. “This has always been done with­out any com­pro­mise to our sov­er­eign­ty; and in prac­ti­cal acknowl­edge­ment of the enor­mous resources avail­able to transna­tion­al crim­i­nals; but, with an unre­lent­ing resolve to secure their con­vic­tion by all avail­able legal and con­sti­tu­tion­al means.” In putting forth its plans to deal with crime, the PNP said it intends to reduce dis­trust between cit­i­zens and law enforce­ment, which, it not­ed, “goes hand in hand with the ‘informer fi dead’ sub­cul­ture”, and makes effec­tive polic­ing very dif­fi­cult. The PNP, if it forms the new Government, has said it will seek to change this sub­cul­ture “by chang­ing the approach of the lead­er­ship of the police to one which embraces ser­vice, account­abil­i­ty and a de-cen­tral­i­sa­tion of author­i­ty,” reads the doc­u­ment. As such, the par­ty says, the JCF will be repo­si­tioned as a civil­ian law enforce­ment organ­i­sa­tion. Special units capa­ble of deal­ing with sit­u­a­tions of extreme vio­lence are to be set up to oper­ate in tan­dem with the JDF. A new PNP admin­is­tra­tion has also com­mit­ted to over­see­ing the devel­op­ment of a ter­tiary-lev­el Forensic Science Programme to pro­vide train­ing for a pro­fes­sion­al cadre of foren­sic sci­en­tists and crime scene inves­ti­ga­tors. This, it said, will help law enforce­ment to keep pace with the chal­lenges of increas­ing­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed crim­i­nals. The PNP, in recog­ni­tion of the rate of recidi­vism in Jamaican pris­ons, said it will focus on reha­bil­i­ta­tion, re-social­i­sa­tion and re-train­ing of inmates. Additionally, it said it intend­ed to help equip them with con­flict-res­o­lu­tion skills, as well as focus on the improve­ment of con­di­tions in cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ties.Read more at jamaicaob​serv​er​.com

It’s inter­est­ing to see that both polit­i­cal par­ties now have a strat­e­gy to fight crime, dur­ing my 10 year tenure in the JCF I sw first hand the dis-ser­vice being done to the coun­try because of a sus­tained lack of com­mit­ment to crime erad­i­ca­tion, and the sup­pres­sion of vio­lent behav­iour. As a result we have seen at least two gen­er­a­tions emerge who see vio­lence and crim­i­nal behav­ior as a viable and accept­able way of life, the coun­try also stand to lose anoth­er gen­er­a­tion of tod­dlers to crime, vio­lence, and car­nal­i­ty, a gen­er­a­tion with no val­ues or morals.It’s inter­est­ing to see that come elec­tion time the Jamaica Labor Party through the National Security min­is­ter is now telling the Police that he will be look­ing out for their inter­est . Where was the Minister when the Government of Bruce Golding dis­re­spect­ed pub­lic sec­tor work­ers by refus­ing to have the appro­pri­ate high lev­el nego­tia­tors who can actu­al­ly make deci­sions for the Government meet with work­ers. This despite the fact pub­lic sec­tor work­ers had con­tracts that were binding.

The oth­er par­ty, the PNP in my view is a trea­so­nous par­ty to Jamaica , when the state­ment above is looked at there is noth­ing in there for law enforce­ment offi­cers, what it offers is to fur­ther erode their author­i­ty to do their jobs , cre­ate anoth­er over­sight agency to fur­ther com­pli­cate mat­ters , does noth­ing to reduce or even address crime, cre­ate ani­mos­i­ty ( see INDECOM) fur­ther bur­den tax­pay­ers, and increase crime. This how­ev­er is noth­ing new for them , this trea­so­nous, anti-lawen­force­ment excuse for a par­ty refused to vote in sup­port of our police and mil­i­tary the time they need­ed to do their jobs by extend­ing the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency (SOE) .

Let me be clear in no oth­er coun­try in the world (not a rouge state) would this be tol­er­at­ed , irre­spec­tive of their pol­i­tics, Government and oppo­si­tions alike under­stand the need for the rule of law to be para­mount, after all if the rule of law is usurped and anar­chy takes its place what will oppo­si­tion par­ties look­ing to gain state pow­er pre­side over. The People’s National Party has been a blight and a scourge on the Jamaican Nation and will con­tin­ue to be for as long as there are more low infor­ma­tion peo­ple look­ing for handouts.

I have lots more to say about these two state­ments put out about crime by both par­ties time how­ev­er does not allow me that lux­u­ry today, elec­tion day. Go out and vote and vote for our coun­try’s future.