Without Fear Or Favor The Truth On Crime Must Be Exposed :and What Isn’t Being Done…

Crime is a prob­lem in many nations , it feeds on pover­ty and poor socio-eco­nom­ic conditions.
Most of all how­ev­er, crime feeds on acquiescence !!!
Nowhere is this more evi­dent than in my coun­try Jamaica.
It bog­gles the mind it defies log­ic, it makes no dis­cernible sense.

Crime increas­es in Jamaica on an annu­al basis, what does the Government do? It pro­pos­es to pass laws which fur­ther enhances the growth of crime and crim­i­nal networks.
This is becom­ing the modus operan­di of the JLP which draft­ed the INDECOM Act with the col­lu­sion of the Opposition PNP and passed that bad law. They did not even both­er to get the views of the par­ties the INDECOM Act is sup­posed to oversee.
They nev­er sought the input of the police , mil­i­tary, nor the cor­rec­tions depart­ments when they con­sid­ered the legislation.
As a con­se­quence, the Law Bruce Golding and his cohorts cob­bled togeth­er with the bless­ings of the oppo­si­tion par­ty has been an unde­ni­able sig­nif­i­cant dri­ver of crime.
Notwithstanding, the Government refus­es to repeal the law dou­bling down on it instead ‚even as it pre­tend to search for clues to the Island’s bur­geon­ing crime problem.
It is not by acci­dent that the English speak­ing Caribbean has an inor­di­nate­ly high crime rate as com­pared to the Dominican Republic and Cuba.

There is a legit­i­mate argu­ment to be made for the high crime rate in Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Guyana as com­pared to the British or US Virgin Islands , or even Barbados , a small Island nation with a small pop­u­la­tion and a Government which takes a decid­ed­ly more intel­li­gent no-non­sense approach to crime.

When we com­pare the British and US vir­gin Islands, Barbados and the more reg­i­ment­ed Cuba, we may extrap­o­late from their crime sta­tis­tics that crime is a fac­tor in the Island Nations which have weak , cor­rupt and crim­i­nal­ly acqui­es­cent Governments.
These weak Governmental struc­tures and their lack of will to effec­tive­ly deal with the core issues of crime have placed sev­er­al Spanish speak­ing coun­tries in the Americas at the top of the list of most dead­ly and vio­lent places in the world along with the English speak­ing Caribbean nations of which Jamaica and Trinidad are a part.

Some Nations are actu­al­ly deter­mined to find ways to fix their crime prob­lem, oth­ers seem­ing­ly are tak­ing steps to fur­ther cement crime into the every­day oper­a­tions of their nations.
Trinidad which had about 351 homi­cides in 2012 is now acknowl­edg­ing that it has a prob­lem which needs urgent reme­di­al action. Guyana in 2012 record­ed 135 killings.
In 2014 Barbados record­ed 25 homi­cides. The British Virgin Islands had 2 in 2006. The Cayman Islands had a grand total of 8 in 2009. Haiti with a pop­u­la­tion of 10.32 mil­lion peo­ple, a coun­try seem­ing­ly in a con­stant state of war had a grand total of 1033 homi­cides in 2012. Puerto Rico with a full mil­lion more peo­ple than Jamaica saw a total of 681 mur­ders in 2014.
Jamaica aver­ages 100 per month , over twelve hun­dred each year​.In 2005 the Island record­ed in excess of 1600 homicides.

Trinidad’s National Security Minister Edmund Dillon said his gov­ern­ment believes a more “direct and strate­gic approach” is required to deal with the sit­u­a­tion in Central Trinidad where rival gangs have been engaged in reprisal killings.
As part of that strat­e­gy the min­is­ter said his Government would place a police sta­tion in the cen­ter of the affect­ed area.
Additionally , the Minister said his gov­ern­ment believes that time is now, the place is Enterprise and the force will be one of uti­liz­ing all agen­cies of nation­al secu­ri­ty to deal with issues of crime.

Conversely , with one of the most astro­nom­i­cal­ly high homi­cide rates, and clear esca­la­tion in the weapon­ry in the hands of crim­i­nals, the Jamaican Government is propos­ing new leg­is­la­tion which on the face of it looks like a crime bill, but is anoth­er police ham­per­ing, crime esca­la­tion piece of legislation.

There will be no reduc­tion in the homi­cide rate in Jamaica any­time soon.
The Special Security and Community Development Measures Act, 2017 , being tabled by the Jamaican Government is not a bill which if passed into law will do any­thing to alle­vi­ate the Island’s run­away mur­der rate.
What it is ‑is polit­i­cal cov­er which will shield the Government from any fall­out when the secu­ri­ty forces are forced to con­front the Island’s vicious killers.

Jamaica has a love affair with crime and crim­i­nals . Many well placed and well con­nect­ed peo­ple are active­ly engaged in crime.
The Government of the United States has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly revoked visas to many of those same peo­ple, some in civ­il soci­ety and even those in the two polit­i­cal parties.
Political pow­er is deter­mined by who have scarce resources to dole out . Crime and cor­rup­tion is rife at all lev­els of the soci­ety includ­ing the Government. No sec­tor is immune from the stench.

What the Jamaican Government is doing with crime today is to ask the secu­ri­ty forces to once again take the risks to bring crime under con­trol as they were asked in 2010, only to hold hear­ings to find ways to imprison and embar­rass them.
In address­ing crime the Jamaican Prime Minister made not a sin­gle men­tion of dead cops, assault­ed cops or the entry of grenades into the arse­nals of the crim­i­nal underworld.
Conversely as the mur­der rate rock­ets out of con­trol Andrew Holness said this.
Quote :“When we designed this (secu­ri­ty mea­sure), we have actu­al­ly writ­ten into the law an account­abil­i­ty frame­work and we have made it an offence for the offi­cers not to fol­low the account­abil­i­ty frame­work.”

This is not a bill designed to erad­i­cate Jamaica’s dan­ger­ous and mur­der­ous crim­i­nal gangs. It is leg­is­la­tion designed to give polit­i­cal cov­er to the Government against crit­i­cisms it is not doing any­thing about the scourge of crime.
The Administration nev­er­the­less has no qualms about cre­at­ing a law which will ensnare the police for doing their jobs as they did when they gave the coun­try INDECOM.
The Police Federation has no clue .…..