When The Police Are Constrained Crime Increases Placing The Lives Of Everyone In Jeopardy

When police are unduly constrained crime increases, This puts the lives of everyone in jeopardy. A rising tide raises all boats.

Police Commissioner Carl Williams final­ly seem to be awak­en­ing to the real­i­ties of what dri­ves crime in Jamaica.
I am not sug­gest­ing that Williams a PhD is clue­less about the chal­lenges he faces in car­ry­ing out his man­date. I believe how­ev­er it is impor­tant that as head of the most crit­i­cal branch of the Nation’s secu­ri­ty Apparatus he gives voice to those challenges.

Reacting to the death of three(3) Police Officers over the span of a few days at the hands of crim­i­nals Williams laments the fact that the Island has not react­ed with the sense of pur­pose or stri­den­cy required to demon­strate to the per­pe­tra­tors that the nation stands against them.
Mister Commissioner I will answer that for you.
The Nation doesn’t !!!
In a Jamaica Observer Article pub­lished July 24^th the Writer came out deci­sive­ly in sup­port of the Commissioner’s con­cern for National out­rage on this issue. 
In the Article which can be found here. : Resounding response nec­es­sary to police com­mis­sion­er’s question!

The Editorial said quote : You know things are bad when INDECOM, the Independent Commission of Investigation, has joined the two major polit­i­cal par­ties and the Ministry of National Security in con­demn­ing the recent activ­i­ties of gun­men. INDECOM has been hard on the police to reduce extra­ju­di­cial killings, with some suc­cess to show for their efforts. In a per­vert­ed sense, this is the iron­ic reward that the Commission gets for its human rights approach to crime. Imperfect as the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) is, it is what stands between the gun­men and anar­chy in our soci­ety. If gun­men feel they can kill police­men and women with impuni­ty, that would embold­en them in their crim­i­nal activ­i­ties generally.

This Publication and this writer in par­tic­u­lar have been stri­dent­ly opposed to the INDECOM Act from it’s incep­tion. I am not opposed to over­sight of the Police Department. In fact the (JCF) by it’s own actions makes it absolute­ly crit­i­cal that effec­tive over­sight is in place.
Oversight how­ev­er can­not be a shack­le which demor­al­izes, Shackles the rule of Law and most impor­tant­ly places offi­cers lives in danger.
The cir­cu­lar nev­er end­ing counter-argu­ments about Police abuse are best dis­cussed with­in a dif­fer­ent con­text. I have always been quite pre­pared to dis­cuss those con­cerns made out­side of the nar­ra­tive of endem­ic police hatred.

For years I have tak­en much heat from peo­ple opposed to my views on what is required to secure the rule of law in Jamaica. I have been called every name imag­in­able yet I am unmoved by name-call­ing because of my love of country.
Jamaica is a ter­rif­ic place, a beau­ti­ful place. We must own up to the fact how­ev­er that our peo­ple are large­ly illit­er­ate and high­ly pre­dis­posed to violence.
Those two char­ac­ter­is­tics makes our coun­try a per­fect place for crime to flour­ish. As we look at crime we must also con­sid­er the many busi­ness­es which are flour­ish­ing as a result of the coun­try’s high crime rate. 
♦Security com­pa­nies.
♦ Funeral parlors.
These are just a cou­ple of the busi­ness­es flour­ish­ing in the upside down real­i­ty which is Jamaica.
With those under­stand­ings it is crit­i­cal that we accept the fact that Policing can­not be done in the con­ven­tion­al sense. I know the naysay­ers are get­ting ready to pounce so let me be clear I am not advo­cat­ing unlaw­ful behav­ior by police.
What I believe is that the Country’s laws must be tougher on crim­i­nals and the state must stand unequiv­o­cal­ly behind police as they enforce the nations laws.
The crim­i­nal courts should also be flushed of the pha­lanx of crim­i­nal sup­port­ing judges who believe their core func­tion is social work . There are more than enough NGO’s on the Island where they can have an impact. The courts need seri­ous Jurists. 

After the INDECOM Act became law I made my views known. I argued that the law was bad not nec­es­sar­i­ly in “Intent”, but bad in “Content”.
I argued that the cumu­la­tive effect of of the law would be the following.
♦ A dra­mat­ic increase in crime. 
♦ A marked increase in dis­re­spect for Police Officers which would lead to more con­fronta­tions between the Police and mem­bers of the public.
♦ An assault on the per­son of Police Officers.
All of those have happened. 
The Article made men­tion of the fact that as a result of INDECOM’s per­sis­tent harass­ment of police offi­cers police shoot­ings have gone down.
Quote: INDECOM has been hard on the police to reduce extra­ju­di­cial killings, with some suc­cess to show for their efforts. In a per­vert­ed sense, this is the iron­ic reward that the Commission gets for its human rights approach to crime.
Even though the Writer is now com­ing around to being sup­port­ive of police the very premise of the state­ment is flawed and a mis­nomer. INDECOM and oth­ers can appeal for less shoot­ings by police. It has zero evi­dence of extra-judi­cial killings as each and every occur­rence of lethal force is a sin­gle indi­vid­ual act. The vast major­i­ty of which when prop­er­ly inves­ti­gat­ed proves to be jus­ti­fied by INDECOM’s own admission.

With those facts in mind, less shoot­ings by Police in that sense can­not be con­strued to be a by-prod­uct of INDECOM’s exis­tence or per­sis­tence, but may be more attrib­ut­able to a less­en­ing of police engage­ment which I have advo­cat­ed for, as a means of pro­tec­tion of police officers.
In essence if their is no engage­ment there can be no poten­tial for shootings.
Hello Jamaica.….

When the police step back crim­i­nals fill the void. Can it be that final­ly some are wak­ing up to those realities?

In a per­vert­ed sense, this is the iron­ic reward that the Commission gets for its human rights approach to crime​.OBSERVER.

(The mass killing of Police )
I con­cur, to the hard core haters of police the rule of law and the sta­bil­i­ty of Jamaica this fact will con­tin­ue to be elusive.