The PM Must Pass His Legislative Agenda On Crime Now…

This writer has called for every single one of those proposals over the last decade-plus, on these very pages. Let us finally stop talking about it and get it done.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness called for the death penal­ty a while back. Before the words could leave his mouth, the pon­tif­i­cat­ing crim­i­nal sup­port­ing vul­tures were already on him, pick­ing apart the car­cass of his words.
For many, this may have come as a sur­prise, but for me, it was par for the course. I was already wide awake to the real­i­ty that there are fac­tions in our coun­try that cel­e­brate the gun cul­ture and the macabre prospect of the wan­ton killing of our fel­low citizens.
There has always been a sub­set with­in the Jamaican body politic that feels itself insu­lat­ed from the real­i­ties of hav­ing their lives snuffed out at a momen­t’s notice. That sub­set, main­ly from the Mona incu­ba­tor, inter­prets its posi­tion in acad­e­mia as a god-giv­en right to dic­tate to the rest of us how we should secure our country.
Tragically, for the ordi­nary Jamaican, not cor­rupt­ed and cor­rod­ed by the Mona incu­ba­tor, the gun­men are a real­i­ty they know and under­stand all too well. The aver­age Jamaican is forced to live with the pon­tif­i­ca­tion and grand­stand­ing that influ­ence the poli­cies and laws that emanate from them.

The Jamaican Prime Minister him­self, a prod­uct of the Mona incu­ba­tor, also har­bored the world­view that most Jamaicans fed up with crime and vio­lence under­stand well. However, Andrew Holness was forced to face the real­i­ty that talk­ing out of the side of one’s mouth while look­ing on from the out­side is dif­fer­ent than governing.
What pass­es for media on the island man­aged to pull itself away momen­tar­i­ly from glo­ri­fy­ing the dance­hall mur­der cul­ture to label the Prime Minister’s call for the death penal­ty an act of frustration.
It may have been an act of frus­tra­tion, truth­ful­ly. After all, the Prime min­is­ter is no dum­my. He under­stands that Jamaica is bound by the British Privy Council’s mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty in 1998.
As a nation, we are sub­ject to that mora­to­ri­um because the lead­er­ship com­pris­ing the two polit­i­cal par­ties still has their col­lec­tive noses up under Charles’ ass.
It fol­lows, there­fore, that if Jamaica is to estab­lish clear lines of demar­ca­tion on the issue of crime, it must do a cou­ple of things. (a) Decouple itself from the shack­les that bind our coun­try to the for­mer slave-own­ing col­o­niz­ers. (b) Establish a strong leg­isla­tive frame­work of laws that makes mur­der­ers and vio­lent offend­ers wish that we had the death penal­ty.
I believe decou­pling from Britain and estab­lish­ing the afore­men­tioned leg­isla­tive frame­work are needed.
I would argue that the death penal­ty is final, and because we do not have the fool­proof sys­tem to estab­lish guilt beyond doubt, we should prob­a­bly keep the mora­to­ri­um on the death penalty.
Many peo­ple to whom I have spo­ken on this sub­ject in the dias­po­ra want the death penal­ty pre­cise­ly because of the love affair many peo­ple have with crim­i­nals, even those con­vict­ed of heinous murders.
They feel that the death penal­ty ends that once and for all. Though frus­trat­ed with the lack of progress on this issue, this writer does not share those views.

The gov­ern­ing Administration can no longer afford to dither on this sub­ject. The vot­ing pub­lic gave the Jamaica Labor Party a huge man­date to secure the coun­try. There is this mis­con­cep­tion that Jamaicans love crim­i­nal­i­ty. I have always dis­agreed with this point of view. I do under­stand that the crim­i­nal sup­port­ers are high pro­file. I under­stand that they have loud bull­horns and are influ­en­tial. But I also know, as a for­mer police offi­cer, that the peo­ple who gave me infor­ma­tion hate crim­i­nals. I know that the major­i­ty of the peo­ple in the dias­po­ra (those not engaged in send­ing back guns and mon­ey to fur­ther crim­i­nal behav­ior, hate the crime on our island. 
Everywhere I go in Jamaica, I use the con­ver­sa­tions I have with the peo­ple as a sound­ing board on the issue of crime and vio­lence. What I hear from the peo­ple is what I heard over three decades ago: they do [not] want crime and vio­lence in their country.
The silent major­i­ty of the Jamaican peo­ple believed the Prime Minister would be seri­ous when he said peo­ple would be able to sleep with their win­dows open if they gave him the man­date to lead. I hard­ly believe they expect­ed that it would be like wav­ing a mag­ic wand and crime would dis­ap­pear. The present sit­u­a­tion did not devel­op overnight; it will not dis­ap­pear overnight. The expec­ta­tion was that the gov­ern­ment would be res­olute once giv­en the man­date to lead.
The Government can­not lay this at the feet of the oppo­si­tion par­ty. We know that with­in that polit­i­cal par­ty are con­vict­ed crim­i­nals with law degrees and oth­ers who would be in prison but for the fail­ures of law enforce­ment. That is not to say there aren’t crim­i­nals in both polit­i­cal parties.
We know that the oppo­si­tion par­ty’s reluc­tance to let go of the issue of crime as a polit­i­cal foot­ball has ren­dered it use­less and worth­less. The Government must lead based on the man­date it was given.

In a recent address, the PM laid out a series of no-non­sense leg­isla­tive mea­sures com­men­su­rate with some that this writer has demand­ed for many years on these same pages as a mat­ter of record. I applaud the recog­ni­tion by the PM. 
Notwithstanding, words are just words; we need leg­isla­tive action from this government.
There will be howls com­ing from the oppo­si­tion par­ty; there will be howls com­ing from the Mona incu­ba­tor; there will be howls com­ing from the for­eign-fund­ed crim­i­nal rights orga­ni­za­tions that have tak­en root in our coun­try. I call on the Prime Minister to ignore those mon­grel dogs and pass his announced leg­isla­tive agenda.
Jamaica is march­ing into devel­oped nation sta­tus; the sin­gle largest issue hold­ing us back is the issue of crime. Those fund­ing the crim­i­nal rights agen­da in our coun­try want to see us fail.
It is in their inter­est to scare their nation­als away from com­ing to Jamaica because if we are unable to con­trol crime, we will per­pet­u­al­ly be a beggar/​bor­row­er nation behold­en to them.
It is time for Jamaican lead­ers to under­stand what is at play here. Their state depart­ments and home office quick­ly issue trav­el advi­sories on Jamaica aimed at dam­ag­ing our nation’s econ­o­my. Thankfully, the cit­i­zens of those coun­tries are not their gov­ern­ments, and as such, peo­ple con­tin­ue to flood our shores to expe­ri­ence for them­selves the beau­ty and joy of brand Jamaica.

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