We Knew It Would Come To This, But Trust Me, It’s Only Going To Get Worse

Real leaders make tough decisions not spit on their fingers and turn to the wind. The burgeoning killing spree is out of control and the nation’s leaders in power refuse to take the steps necessary to end it.
On the other hand, the opposition party seeks to make hay of the situation rather than proposing workable solutions.
At this rate soon there will be no one left.

If you believe that the role of a Police Commissioner is pure­ly admin­is­tra­tive and that the most senior exec­u­tive posi­tion in a police agency can be occu­pied by some­one who has a cou­ple of degrees in a dis­ci­pline unre­lat­ed to polic­ing; then I sug­gest the next time you need surgery ask the jan­i­tor to do it. (He may even do it on the cheap for you).
Conventional wis­dom in Jamaica is that a per­son who has a degree in any sub­ject auto­mat­i­cal­ly makes them an expert in all things.
It’s a real­ly regres­sive think­ing process, but that helps the ego of the peo­ple who labor to earn their degrees; they now get to feel good about them­selves at the expense of the peo­ple who chose not to go that route.
Even as I con­tin­ue to advo­cate for high­er education,-education has pre­cious lit­tle to do with earn­ing degrees.
This brings me to my point; I am still sur­prised at the num­ber of police offi­cers and for­mer mem­bers who actu­al­ly believe that the present Commissioner of Police is right for the JFC.

Because real talk, the man was the head of the Jamaica Defense Force (JDF),so he must know how to be a bet­ter com­mis­sion­er than the career offi­cers, right?
(In fact, that exper­i­ment of for­mer heads of the JCF tak­ing over the force has real­ly worked out well for the country).
Hardly Lewin. Trevor Mac Millan and now Antony Anderson, the awe­some­ness of that exper­i­ment has been astound­ing. (sar­casm)
Maybe the next time there is a fire, I will call the teach­ers to put it out. A lack of respect for all dis­ci­plines, and a healthy under­stand­ing that every cat­e­go­ry of work­ers is as impor­tant as the oth­er, has been crit­i­cal in decid­ing what the coun­try is going through with vio­lent crime.
Too many knuck­le­heads and too many talk­ing heads had too much time on their hands, so a dai­ly dose of anti-police invec­tive both on radio and tele­vi­sion for decades cre­at­ed gen­er­a­tions that have zero respect for the rule of law.

That aside, senior lead­ers of the JCF have not com­port­ed them­selves in a way that inspires and engen­ders trust in their leadership.
The cor­rupt prac­tices of nepo­tism, polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions, news car­ry­ing, etc., have forced men to become boys. They jock­ey for advance­ment not on mer­it, but by cur­ry­ing favor with whomev­er they feel can best serve their self­ish interest.
This facil­i­tates a break­down in morale and even worse results in a lack of respect from their juniors.
This has giv­en cov­er to polit­i­cal admin­is­tra­tions from both polit­i­cal par­ties to side­line senior lead­ers who would nor­mal­ly be in con­tention for the top spot.
And seri­ous­ly, who amongst us could rea­son­ably make a case for any of the top lead­er­ship of the force to come up with strate­gies that would begin to trend vio­lent crime downwards.
So even as we rub­bish bring­ing in for­mer heads of the mil­i­tary, there is no argu­ment to be made for some­one from the present crop of Deputy Commissioners to become com­mis­sion­er of police.
The present cri­sis neces­si­tat­ed the Prime Minister declar­ing that it is out of the scope of the JCF to han­dle and that the crime sit­u­a­tion is now a pandemic.
Both state­ments are indeed true, three of the force’s offi­cers can­not effect the arrest of a sin­gle sub­ject, so there is that.
Even as Commissioner Anderson laments the high inci­dences of vio­lent crime, quote,“We have a mur­der rate that per­sists at a lev­el of 3 times our region­al aver­age and 8 times the glob­al aver­age.” ‑This writer is at least glad that he is start­ing to real­ize some­thing that I have been bang­ing the drums about for well over a decade in this medium.
Unfortunately, a com­mis­sion­er of police who came up through the ranks, with the coun­try fac­ing this pan­dem­ic of mur­ders, would have been long scape­goat­ed and fired.
So as we con­tin­ue to ‘give Tony a chance (more sar­casm), we are also painful­ly aware that he has got­ten expo­nen­tial­ly more grace than any of his pre­de­ces­sors who came up through the ranks. It is a bit­ter pill to swal­low that some­one com­ing from zero police knowl­edge, can poten­tial­ly be bet­ter at polic­ing tac­tics, train­ing, per­son­nel, lead­er­ship, strate­giz­ing, security,etc than career officers.

Having out­lined the fore­gone, it is impor­tant to assert that at this point, it does­n’t mat­ter who the com­mis­sion­er of police is. With the lax laws in our coun­try being what they are, and the judges aid­ing and abet­ting the shot­tas, this coun­try is in for a bumpy ride.
(‘Many more will have to suf­fer, many more will have to die) Hon Robert Nesta Marley.
This writer has con­sis­tent­ly called for stricter laws. Better train­ing for our police. Longer sen­tences for crim­i­nals who com­mit vio­lent crimes. Stricter gun laws send a clear mes­sage that gun crimes will not be tol­er­at­ed. Mandatory min­i­mum sen­tences remove from the judge’s con­trol the length of prison time a vio­lent offend­er receives. The Jamaican judi­cia­ry is a large part of the exis­ten­tial threat the nation faces.
Truth in sen­tenc­ing, ten years must mean ten years locked away, unless offend­ers take mea­sur­able steps that demon­strate to a com­pe­tent body that they are reformed.
It is cliché to argue that doing the same things brings the same results, but it is also true. Decisions that bring mea­sur­able pos­i­tive results require tough choic­es that are not always pop­u­lar. Since politi­cians depend on pop­ulism to get elect­ed, it is nat­ur­al that they shun tough deci­sions. This is not unique to Jamaica, but Jamaica has a par­tic­u­lar strain of law­less­ness that comes from its lead­ers’ cow­ardice and silent acquiescence.
Jamaica’s vio­lent crime prob­lem will remain until a nation­al awak­en­ing rec­og­nizes that this is not in the nation’s inter­est. Until then, the police and mil­i­tary will con­tin­ue to pour water into the bas­ket and won­der why the water lev­el nev­er rises?

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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.