Those Who Care Wring Their Hands In Despair But Does The Government Want Less Crime…

I read about the mur­ders rapes , shoot­ings and oth­er felonies being com­mit­ted in Jamaica dai­ly. I also read and watch videos of grue­some crimes being com­mit­ted against women and even defense­less inno­cent babies. I do so with trep­i­da­tion and fear. Fear for fam­i­ly and friends who live in Jamaica. I also fear for the lives of the good police offi­cers who place their lives on the line dai­ly believ­ing they can make a dif­fer­ence on an Island where the peo­ple large­ly do not under­stand the ben­e­fits good law-enforce­ment bring to their lives and a Government which is quite con­tent to keep them ignorant.
Crime is a phe­nom­e­non which feeds on acqui­es­cence and oppor­tu­ni­ty. That means crime metas­ta­size when the peo­ple are ambiva­lent to it and when the peo­ple actu­al­ly cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for it to occur,.

It will be dif­fi­cult to make a case that Jamaica is not ambiva­lent and in many ways engage in cre­at­ing the envi­ron­ment for crime to flour­ish both by omis­sion and commission.
Our Police are woe­ful­ly inca­pable of mak­ing a dent in crime as a result and are in many cas­es now sim­ply engaged in ensur­ing their own sur­vival. Despite the con­tin­ued esca­la­tion in the num­ber of seri­ous crimes being com­mit­ted on the Island the Administration seem more con­cerned with erect­ing bar­ri­ers which would pre­vent the Police from hav­ing suc­cess than actu­al­ly declar­ing war on orga­nized crime.
Some argue the polit­i­cal Directorate is active­ly engaged in seri­ous cor­rup­tion and oth­er crim­i­nal acts.
The Police Department suf­fer great­ly from Political inter­fer­ence in their abil­i­ty to do their jobs. Interference comes in the form of trans­fers, lack of pro­mo­tion and may even mean much more seri­ous con­se­quences if the wrong per­son is pros­e­cut­ed even when they com­mit heinous crimes. This is not lost on the crim­i­nal under­world which exploit every open­ing it gets to increase it’s assault on law abid­ing Jamaicans.

There is much to-do now about (inde­com) , the agency was cre­at­ed by the for­mer Jamaica Labor Party Administration after what many saw as out of con­trol police abuse and cor­rup­tion. The new Agency has respon­si­bil­i­ty to police the Military, the Police and Corrections Departments.
On the face of it no one can deny the need for police over­sight in light of recent occur­rences not just in Jamaica but in the United States of Americas well.
Many on the side­lines with axes to grind and per­son­al agen­das naïve­ly’ and in many case igno­rant­ly argue that if police offi­cers are not break­ing the laws they have noth­ing to fear from aggres­sive oversight.

Those state­ments lack a fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing of the chal­lenges Police offi­cers face in exe­cut­ing their duties. When we talk about polic­ing in Jamaica those chal­lenges are mul­ti­plied expo­nen­tial­ly. Oversight can­not be adver­sar­i­al and or con­fronta­tion­al with polic­ing. Effective over­sight works cohe­sive­ly with police in order to remove cor­rup­tion . It can­not be a witch-hunt aimed at mak­ing crim­i­nals out of peo­ple who act in good faith in the law­ful exe­cu­tion of their man­dates and are forced to make life and death deci­sions in split sec­ond scenarios.
One can­not ful­ly under­stand those nuances unless one has donned a police uni­form and faced the cir­cum­stances offi­cers face. Even the most ardent crit­ics of police in many devel­oped coun­tries adjust their posi­tions when placed in sim­u­lat­ed sit­u­a­tions in which they have to make split sec­ond decisions.
That is the rea­son police are giv­en such wide lat­i­tude to do their jobs in devel­oped coun­tries. That is not to say Police are jus­ti­fied in expand­ing those lat­i­tudes and inter­pre­ta­tions of right and wrong. That is where prop­er­ly focused intel­li­gent over­sight comes in.
Police over­sight can­not be con­duct­ed with a view to indict­ing or impris­on­ing offi­cers, the police is not the ene­my. Officers go out to do good. It can­not be done because some­one wants to be seen. It can­not be done so one can build a rep­u­ta­tion or a resume as is the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Jamaica.

At present (inde­com) is not an effec­tive over­sight agency. As present­ly con­fig­ured and autho­rized it is a con­fronta­tion­al (pseu­do-rights agency) not far removed from the pha­lanx of oth­er so-called rights agen­cies oper­at­ing on the Island. Throwing a white face into the mix does not legit­imize (inde­com), it actu­al­ly prove the opposite.
Insofar as for­eign gov­ern­ments and Departments are con­cerned if they want­ed Jamaica to progress they would be offer­ing aid in train­ing, equip­ment, tech­ni­cal know-how and oth­er oper­a­tional upgrades to the JCF not offer­ing mon­ey to aid and com­fort (inde­com).
Every coun­try which offers mon­ey or oth­er aid to (inde­com) have strong police agen­cies which they do not allow any agency or per­son to con­flict with.

As I have report­ed from speak­ing to offi­cers on the ground there is real­ly no effec­tive inves­ti­ga­tions from the Island’s detec­tives. Many would have you believe Jamaican offi­cers and by exten­sion our detec­tives are sub-stan­dard or in some way infe­ri­or to their coun­ter­parts in oth­er coun­tries. The fact is that the evi­dence points in the oppo­site direction.
Time after time when­ev­er mem­bers of the JCF com­pete or par­tic­i­pate in train­ing cours­es with their con­tem­po­raries from oth­er coun­tries, includ­ing the devel­oped world our offi­cers per­form in exem­plary fash­ion , in many instances out­shin­ing those officers.

Presently there are ambi­gu­i­ties between the police and (inde­com) as to who has con­trol of cer­tain crime scenes. How does an over­sight agency have con­trol of a scene of crime is beyond comprehension.
The chal­lenge for Jamaica is not an unavail­abil­i­ty of tal­ent and com­mit­ment . Jamaicans need to reori­ent it’s views on the rule of law and make a deci­sion whether it wants to be sim­i­lar to a sub-Saharan fief­dom con­trolled by war­lords or a pro­gres­sive 21^st cen­tu­ry Island posi­tioned for growth and development.
Only the peo­ple can decide that. If their actions of the past are any­thing to go by I do not hold out much hope for the fore­see­able future.