The JLPNP On Crime!

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.