We Know The Who, And When But Won’t Accept The What…

How can we solve problems when there is no longer the decency character and honesty to concede truth?

The idea that going aggres­sive­ly after crim­i­nals is equal to abus­ing cit­i­zens rights is a red her­ring fed the Jamaican peo­ple by those who want the sta­tus quo. Crime in Jamaica is high­ly ben­e­fi­cial to a small group of peo­ple. Less or no crime ben­e­fits all peo­ple and enrich­es the lives of everyone.
Unfortunately, most peo­ple do not under­stand this and so they are forced deep­er and deep­er into an unholy alliance with crim­i­nals against their own self-inter­est, which serves the inter­est of the minor­i­ty just fine.

Does it mean then that because we can­not agree even on indis­putable fact that those who speak truth should sim­ply throw up their hands and give way to fake news? If we do that where do we go from here, what kind of world are we leav­ing our chil­dren, as President Barack Obama says “we can­not even estab­lish a com­mon base­line of facts”?

Two events have occurred in Jamaica over the last sev­er­al decades as a mat­ter of fact (a) The dis­in­te­gra­tion of the rule of law and (b) The resul­tant impov­er­ish­ment of the peo­ple, large­ly as a con­se­quence of (a).

mur­der-rate-jamaica

Year	# of Murders
1970	152
1971	145
1972	170
1973	227
1974	195
1975	266
1976	367
1977	409
1978	381
1979	351
1980	899
1981	490
1982	405
1983	424
1984	484
1986	449
1987	442
1988	414
1989	439
1990	543
1991	561
1992	629
1994	690
1995	780
1998	953
1999	849
2000	887
2002	1045
2003	975
2004	1471
2005	1674
2006	1340
2007	1574
2008	1601
2009	1680
2010	1428
2011	1125
2012	1097
2013	1200
2014	1005
2015	1192
2016	1350

FACT
Crime and mur­ders have steadi­ly climbed since the earl 70’s with a cou­ple of instances in which con­crete actions have stunt­ed its growth.
Nevertheless, despite this clear and unequiv­o­cal evi­dence Jamaica’s polit­i­cal lead­ers of both polit­i­cal par­ties have sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly ignored the data and have respond­ed to the nation’s esca­lat­ing mur­der sta­tis­tics by focus­ing on for­eign treaties rather than on their sworn con­sti­tu­tion­al respon­si­bil­i­ty to secure the nation.

FACT
As a con­se­quence of the esca­lat­ing mur­ders, the long­stand­ing stream of return­ing res­i­dents who worked and saved to return to the land of their birth has lit­er­al­ly dried up.
In some cas­es some have actu­al­ly returned to their adopt­ed homes abroad, hav­ing decid­ed that the Island is no longer a safe place to live. Those, of course, are the ones who haven’t fall­en vic­tim to crime and are count­ed among the statistics.

Additionally, investors are cer­tain­ly not invest­ing in Jamaica as they nor­mal­ly would despite the hyper­bole and hype which tend to dom­i­nate the local publications.

Using the fig­ures above, between the peri­od 1970 to the year 2000, homi­cides was a seri­ous issue. Yet homi­cides nev­er offi­cial­ly topped 1000.
During the same peri­od the year, 1980 was an anom­aly as it relat­ed to homi­cides, 1980 was the crit­i­cal mass for polit­i­cal killings on the Island 899 Jamaicans were mur­dered. The num­ber was out of char­ac­ter with pre­vi­ous years and for sev­er­al suc­ceed­ing years as well.

In the year 1982 when I joined the Constabulary Force, there were 405 homi­cides by the end of 1991 when I exit­ed the Constabulary there were a record­ed 561 record­ed homicides.
What that means is that in the peri­od between 1982 and 1991 a 9 year peri­od mur­ders had only increased by 156. Now one mur­der is one too many but you get the picture.

The peri­od below is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Michael Manley years, though the mur­der num­bers were high, those homi­cides were large­ly con­cen­trat­ed in the most depressed com­mu­ni­ties and away from the rest of the society.

Year	# of Murders
1970	152
1971	145
1972	170
1973	227
1974	195
1975	266
1976	367
1977	409
1978	381
1979	351
1980	899

The com­mon denom­i­na­tor which informed the homi­cide sta­tis­tics in the peri­od 1981 to 1988 [1985 miss­ing] is the lead­er­ship of Edward Seaga.

1981	490
1982	405
1983	424
1984	484
1986	449
1987	442
1988	414

The peri­od after Seaga was the peri­od of Manley again.

1989	439
1990	543
1991	561
1992	629

Then came the stew­ard­ship of Percival James Patterson, a peri­od of any­thing goes, no sup­port for the rule of law and a total den­i­gra­tion of our cul­ture and coun​try​.Here are the num­bers under Patterson.
Patterson ruled for an unprece­dent­ed 14 years.The peri­od in which we lost the soul of our coun­try and he did not lift a fin­ger to stop it.
In fact, Patterson’s tenure may be bet­ter seen as the peri­od in which Government abdi­cat­ed it’s respon­si­bil­i­ties and ced­ed the streets to com­mon thugs.
For almost ten (10) years not a sin­gle dol­lar was pro­vid­ed to train a sin­gle police detective.
Patterson’s tenure was marred by graft cor­rup­tion and the most bla­tant abuse of tax­pay­ers funds in our nation’s history.

1992	629
1994	690
1995	780
1998	953
1999	849
2000	887
2002	1045
2003	975
2004	1471
2005	1674

[ 1993 ‚1996,1997,2001] missing.

Then there was Portia Simpson Miller.…

2006	1340
2007	1574

Bruce Golding’s tenure.

2007	1574
2008	1601
2009	1680
2010	1428
2011	1125

Andrew Holness Prime Minister from October 2011 to January 5, 2012

2011

1125

Miller again, January 5^th, 2012 to 3 March 2016.

2012	1097
2013	1200
2014	1005
2015	1192
2016	1350

Under Percival Patterson the coun­try lost its way, I have stat­ed my opin­ions as to what I believed occurred and why. It is up to oth­ers to make up their minds as to when and what accel­er­at­ed the mur­der rate in our country.
To my mind, there is no ques­tion as to the when and why.

What the coun­try is strug­gling with is the “what” which is the for­mu­la for fix­ing what ails the coun­try crime wise. Since Hugh Lawson Shearer is no longer around to offer the solu­tion Andrew Holness would be well advised to tap the shoul­der of Edward Seaga and ask for advice before we reach the point of no return/
Edward Seaga is good for more than just being parad­ed around when they need to win by-elec­tions at all cost.