Violent Crimes Escalate, Leaders Vacillate

As another year draws to a close, Jamaica is once again saddled with the dubious distinction of being one of the most violent places to live on this planet.
We must examine ourselves with clear-eyes and figure out whether the violence may be attributed to Jamaicans having a greater propensity for violence, as against whether people commit crimes because they believe with a high degree of certainty, that there will be no consequences for their actions, even if they are caught?

I think both sce­nar­ios are true; I also believe that the lat­ter con­trols the for­mer, but there is a lack of will to do what is necessary.
Additionally, Jamaican author­i­ties act as though our laws have to pass muster with the American, Canadian, and British Embassy.
Their con­tin­ued feal­ty and docile sub­servience to their old colo­nial mas­ters have great­ly ham­pered the nation’s crime-fight­ing efforts, even as those coun­tries leg­is­late and exe­cute their poli­cies with­out care or con­cern about what any oth­er nation thinks, least of all Jamaica.
The United States State Department is quick to judge how oth­er nations enforce their laws, even as the United States has one of the worse records in law enforce­ment and human rights.
On the one hand, American made guns con­tin­ue to flood the Island unabat­ed, yet on the oth­er, the United States rou­tine­ly issues alarm­ing [trav­el advi­sories] when those guns are used in vio­lent acts.
The United States can­not have it both ways, and the larg­er ques­tion remains, why is Jamaica act­ing as if it is the 51st state of the United States anyway?

As for Canada and Great Britain, why we care what they think is a mys­tery to me? Please enlight­en me, someone!
The sad real­i­ty, is that Jamaica has become like the man accom­pa­nied by his son, who took his Donkey to sell it.
The hap­less man lis­tened to every com­ment peo­ple passed made; he even end­ed up tieing up the don­key and car­ry­ing it between him and his young son.
Jamaica is either a sov­er­eign nation, or it isn’t. As a nation that has to fend for itself like every oth­er, we have the right to deter­mine autonomous­ly, how we leg­is­late, and effec­tu­ate policies.
We bor­row mon­ey like every­one else; how­ev­er, as a large­ly Black coun­try, Jamaica does not receive the aid that oth­er small­er nations receive from the big pow­ers that like to push their agen­das on us.
The state of Israel rose out of the desert in 1947; Jamaica gained it’s [so-called inde­pen­dence] in 1962; Jamaica has few­er than 3 mil­lion cit­i­zens. Conversely, the state of Israel has a pop­u­la­tion of 8.884 mil­lion as of (2018).
Israel is a nuclear-armed, nation that sets pol­i­cy in the mid­dle east.
It is so because the same pow­ers to whom Jamaica is heav­i­ly indebt­ed, the same pow­ers that like to dic­tate to Jamaica what is right and wrong, have fund­ed Israel’s growth even as they turn a blind eye to its war crimes across the mid­dle east from its inception.

No nation should sur­ren­der its auton­o­my to anoth­er because it bor­rows mon­ey from that oth­er coun­try. However, as the Bible teach­es, the bor­row­er is a slave to the lender, which is what Jamaica has become, a slave to America and oth­ers from which it con­tin­ues to borrow.
The sad truth is that the nations that dic­tate to Jamaica how it may enforce its laws, know full well the con­se­quences of crime to jamaica’s economy.
As I have said repeat­ed­ly, it is up to Jamaica to see through these big pow­ers’ strat­e­gy. A nation engulfed in crime is a nation that can­not ful­fill its poten­tial. A nation that can­not ful­fill it’s poten­tial is a nation that will for­ev­er be a debtor nation.
As a nation, Jamaica must stop being pre­ten­tious; we are not a Scandavanian nation; we must deal with our vio­lent killers in deci­sive ways, and end the pre­ten­tious appease­ment policies.
A nation that nego­ti­ates with, and begs vio­lent mur­der­ers to obey its laws is a nation that has sur­ren­dered to terror.
Some branch­es of the Jamaican Government has all but become lob­by­ing firms for the Island’s most vio­lent crim­i­nals, none more so than the so-called Justice Ministry, and the tax-pay­er paid Minister who heads that Ministry.

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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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