The Minister Of National Security & Commissioner’s Posturing Is Just That, Posturing!

“Insanity,” “the state of being seri­ous­ly men­tal­ly ill; mad­ness, extreme fool­ish­ness or irrationality.
Psychology today char­ac­ter­izes (insan­i­ty) this way; Mental ill­ness of such a severe nature that a per­son can­not dis­tin­guish fan­ta­sy from real­i­ty, can­not con­duct her/​his affairs due to psy­chosis, or is sub­ject to uncon­trol­lable impul­sive behav­ior. … men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als inform it, but the term today is pri­mar­i­ly legal, not psychological.
Haha, and there it is, folks.….colloquially, we Jamaicans refer to insan­i­ty as doing the same thing over and over, yet expect­ing a dif­fer­ent result.
In prac­ti­cal terms doing the same thing over and over will result in the same result; it is like math; it does not mat­ter how many times you mul­ti­ply 10 x 10, you will end up with 100, as long as you do so correctly.

For those rea­sons, the hand­wring­ing from the likes of Horace Chang, min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty, at the rash of killings in the Farm com­mu­ni­ty of Clarendon, is so utter­ly dis­gust­ing to me.
Speaking at the May Pen Police Station, Chang lament­ed the com­mu­ni­ty’s lack of sup­port against lawlessness.
(‘I urge com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers with infor­ma­tion about these killings to come for­ward and lend sup­port to the police so we can erad­i­cate these crim­i­nals.”
(“These crim­i­nals behave in an almost sav­age way, and that is a result of the fail­ure of our soci­ety in pre­serv­ing aspects of social order.”
What BS, Horace Chang is the mem­ber of Parliament for one of the strongest gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ties in the Parish of Saint James. Before he became Minister of National [Security], which is an oxy­moron when con­sid­ered along­side some­one like Chang, he was a defend­er of the crim­i­nals oper­at­ing in his gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ty on the one hand, while pay­ing lip ser­vice to the rule of law on the other.

The real sto­ry is not the hypocrisy of the likes of Horace Chang, and in fair­ness, all of the Island’s politi­cians and cer­tain seg­ments of the social class. It is about how they set the house on fire then bemoan the destruc­tion caused by the flames.
Gone are the days when our coun­try had four to five hun­dred homi­cides per year. We now live in an exis­tence where a thou­sand dead Jamaicans annu­al­ly, would be seen and cel­e­brat­ed as a work­ing law enforce­ment strategy.
The fak­ery and pre­ten­tious­ness of that area of the Jamaican soci­ety that influ­ences and make deci­sions that mat­ter, makes it impos­si­ble for this intractable prob­lem of endem­ic vio­lence to be dealt with decisively.
No one wants a soci­ety in which police offi­cers oper­ate with impuni­ty. Certainly not con­sci­en­tious police offi­cers past or present. This writer, him­self, a for­mer mem­ber of the JCF, has zero-tol­er­ance for that polic­ing; as a young offi­cer, I had sev­er­al con­fronta­tions with offi­cers who would abuse their oaths by mis­treat­ing mem­bers of the public.
I left the JCF a long time ago, but not long enough that my ser­vice record can­not be traced. Many of my for­mer col­leagues are still serv­ing; they knew where I stood then, they know where I stand now, based on my years of writ­ing on this subject.
My adher­ence to the rules should nev­er be con­strued to be pas­siv­i­ty or a lack­lus­ter approach to how vio­lent crim­i­nals should be dealt with.

Keeping homi­cides under five hun­dred per year in Jamaica was no easy feat; it cer­tain­ly did not occur in a vac­u­um, and it cer­tain­ly was not accom­plished by implor­ing mur­der­ers to obey the laws.
Social pro­grams are worth­while steps to take to end the vicious cycle of vio­lence pro­duc­ers and cor­ralling vio­lent criminals.
But the Island has strayed so far away from what kept the mur­der num­bers low dur­ing the ’80s, that beseech­ing the com­mu­ni­ties to report crim­i­nals to the police today, is tan­ta­mount to ask­ing the crim­i­nals to turn them­selves in.
Entire com­mu­ni­ties are arguably havens of crim­i­nal­i­ty in which decent law-abid­ing mem­bers are in the minor­i­ty and are ter­ri­fied to open their mouths to any­one about what they know.
They have zero con­fi­dence in the police, and would rather live under the crim­i­nals’ bootheels instead of risk­ing a vio­lent and bloody end­ing by giv­ing the police infor­ma­tion. Information they cor­rect­ly believe may end up right back with the vio­lent mur­der­ers they want to be removed from their communities.
To a cer­tain degree, many police offi­cers’ atti­tudes today are sym­pa­thet­ic and more reflec­tive of the views and beliefs that exist in cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties, than they reflect a belief in the rule of law.
That is the inher­ent tragedy that the nation now grap­ples with, and the divide that the crim­i­nals con­tin­ue to exploit.

A Jamaican soci­ety was cre­at­ed that gives every ben­e­fit of the doubt to vio­lent mur­der­ers. The law-mak­ers head gar­ri­son con­stituen­cies that are ver­i­ta­ble havens of crim­i­nal­i­ty. Consequently, the laws are not par­tic­u­lar­ly slant­ed to the con­tin­u­a­tion of the Jamaican State as a viable enti­ty that is larg­er than the indi­vid­ual; the laws are undu­ly acqui­es­cent to the rights of the most vicious murderer.
The cause of all this is now debat­ed as the fault of the large pow­ers that loans mon­ey to keep the Jamaican state afloat.
Whether or not Jamaica is now sub­servient to America and oth­er nations because it depends on them for loans is a plau­si­ble con­ver­sa­tion to have.
However, long before Jamaica was inun­dat­ed with crim­i­nal rights activists and lob­by­ists telling the lead­ers what they can and can­not do leg­isla­tive­ly, the lead­ers them­selves were active lob­by­ists and pro­tec­tors of the vio­lent crim­i­nals that preyed upon the weak and defenseless.
The so-called human-rights lob­by, bet­ter knows as crim­i­nal rights activists, mere­ly exploit­ed the space that already exist­ed between the crim­i­nals and those enforc­ing the laws.

The habit of the Minister of National Security and the com­mis­sion­er of Police of show­ing up in com­mu­ni­ties after the may­hem inflict­ed by the mur­der­ers, are tired, worn-out, and frankly pathetic.
The words ring hol­low and use­less. They are exer­cis­es in futil­i­ty. Begging peo­ple to come for­ward is a waste of time; it will not happen.
There was a rea­son that things were dif­fer­ent in the past; the police were more respect­ed; a large per­cent­age of the JCF was more revered. Call them super cops, call them name brand cops, or what­ev­er. The ter­mi­nol­o­gy does not mean bru­tal or law­less; it meant effective.
We got the infor­ma­tion we need­ed; we knew the crim­i­nals because cit­i­zens trust­ed us.
The trust and love many com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers had for us made it impos­si­ble for crim­i­nal ele­ments to gar­ner the courage to set up shop in the spaces we oper­at­ed in.
Despite the hifa­lutin the­o­ries being bandied about how polic­ing should be done, some­thing that has cor­rupt­ed JCF mem­bers’ minds, polic­ing remains large­ly the same.
Officers must car­ry them­selves with dig­ni­ty and pur­pose and show respect to the com­mu­ni­ty, which will result in reci­procity if cul­ti­vat­ed over time.
That is what I mean when I say polic­ing remains the same. We can argue that com­mu­ni­ties in which police have been suc­cess­ful, (let us say in the United States), are the same com­mu­ni­ties to which the police show respect.
The oppo­site is true of those com­mu­ni­ties in which the police act as overlords.

The sad real­i­ty is that the Gangsters who oper­ate as shot-callers in com­mu­ni­ties across the Island knew the impact name brand cops had on their abil­i­ties to operate.
They put the pow­der in the water that col­ored the nar­ra­tive. They knew that soci­ety would go along with their idea that name brand cops were bad for Jamaica. They knew that the elites would drink the cool-aid, and that the crim­i­nals who oper­ate out of Gordon House would fol­low suit.
It has been a sys­temic strat­e­gy employed by them to dis­cred­it the police; it includ­ed lay­ing down cov­er­ing fire so that weapons fall­en from dead gang­sters may be retrieved by oth­er gang­sters, there­by cre­at­ing the impres­sion that the cops mur­dered inno­cent choir boys. It grad­u­at­ed to send­ing out mourn­ers to demon­strate that cops mur­dered inno­cent men, paid mourn­ers, oth­ers forced at the per­il of their lives.
The crim­i­nal under­world under­stood that weak­en­ing the Police depart­ment was the best strat­e­gy for turn­ing the Island into the gang­ster’s par­adise it has become. Unfortunately, the fakes and frauds at the UWI did not under­stand it.
Out of that insti­tu­tion came some of the vapi­dest attacks on the police.
The JCF lead­er­ship, failed to respond, like neutered dogs, total­ly sup­pli­cant to their polit­i­cal boss­es, they allowed the nar­ra­tive to take root with­out fight­ing back.
Today, the JCF is the UWI; the force’s entire senior lead­er­ship has one con­nec­tion or anoth­er with that insti­tu­tion. An insti­tu­tion that is one of the most anti-law enforce­ment any­where in the world.
One that has com­plete­ly cor­rupt­ed and cor­rod­ed the process that the lead­er­ship of the JCF is unable to find its way out of a brown paper bag, despite the long list of let­ters they boast beside their names.

It was nev­er about let­ters and degrees. It was nev­er about brava­do, and pos­tur­ing. It has always been about com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion, love of coun­try, which should not be attrib­uted to the Island’s lead­ers of either polit­i­cal party.
That is what we brought to the table when we strapped up and stepped out to do our jobs. We want­ed a Jamaica in which all peo­ple could go about their busi­ness in peace and with the assur­ance that they would be secure.
The pay was no good, but it was not what drove so many away; it has been the lack of sup­port for the rule of law, by the peo­ple who made the laws.
The soil is now far too con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed to pro­duce good crops. The gang­sters know it. They also know that the Minister of National Security and the Commissioner of police’s pos­tur­ing is just that.
Posturing!

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
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