Here’s how we can begin to systemically rid Jamaica of crime

ACCORDING to Insight Crime, a non-profit journalism and investigative entity specialising in organised crime in Latin America and the Caribbean, Jamaica had the highest homicide rate in the entire region for 2020 — an already turbulent year.

The high crime rate has been a thorn in the side of Jamaica for decades; in fact, over 1,000 people have been murdered every year since 2001, excluding 2003. Being in the number one spot, we passed out countries such as El Salvador and Venezuela, with 46.5 per 100,000 being our official murder rate.

Jamaica also has an immense problem with aggravated assault, rape, illegal trade, and missing individuals.

There are many reasons for this, among them the lack of opportunities, poor parenting, culture, and mindset. Jamaica is an indisciplined nation with a deeply entrenched culture of worshipping ‘badniss’. We’ve seen this with how we respond to instances of petty crimes to heinous acts. How can we, as a nation, tackle serious crime when people don’t even care about littering and obeying the rules of the road?

We need accountability, not only from the Government, but also on the part of regular citizens. If we want less fatal accidents and indecency on the road, street surveillance will need to be increased. The Jamaicaeye programme can be extended to all street corners in all major cities and towns secured by blockchain technology, and a dashcam initiative can be started with a target attachment rate of 33 per cent being the goal. If a third of drivers have dashcams a good number of reckless drivers would be reported through social media and would face sanctions. This should discourage more motorists from disobeying the road code. In addition, the fines need to be updated and inflation pegged for them to not be outdated in a few years and have ridiculously low cost decades from now.

There is need for a cleaner and larger police force to enforce the laws efficiently. Jamaica is a country of close to three million people, with approximately 14,000 police, that gives us a ratio of roughly 214 people to every police. If the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) can be increased to around 20,000 that would drastically help the strain on the force.

An increase in pay for lower-ranked officers could also help. But, before that is done, we need a force that has more integrity and is dedicated to justice. The corrupt individuals would have to be weeded out and replaced with young, dedicated individuals who feel the zeal to do what’s right. In addition, the infrastructure of the organisation would have to change and to make it painstakingly harder to partake in illegal activities, much less get what away with the act. Once this is done, the trust in the JCF will increase.

Jamaica is in serious need of a fully realised, legitimate intelligence agency. I propose to merge the Major Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Agency (MOCA) and CounterTerrorism and Organised Crime Division (C-TOC) and separate them from the JCF. The newly merged organisation would need to be given massive financial support and be embedded with protocols