The Wild West on Spanish Town Road

LAST Tuesday evening’s ‘Wild West’ incident along Spanish Town Road in Kingston underlines how far we are from living in peace, comfort and style in this country.

Gunmen from nearby Tivoli Gardens, the police stated, got into a confrontation with those from across the road in Denham Town and started firing at each other, necessitating an intervention from police personnel at Denham Town station, which, incidentally, has experienced more attacks from gunmen than any other facility in Jamaica since Independence.

Will there ever be a day in the lifetime of some of us when we can rest comfortably in the day or night knowing that a jackass with a gun will not come in search of the fruits of our labours?

There has been no plan by any political party to really concentrate on reducing crime, because you can’t eliminate crime. One reason for that is because some of those same ‘shottas’ are connected to the parties as enforcers.

So instead of rolling out an elaborate plan for keeping crime under control, we still find in this age, leaders toying with something so serious — the current prime minister in his quest for cheap votes unleashing the prophecy that once his party got elected, people in this country could sleep with their windows and doors open. I would love to get a call from the first individual who tries that and lives to boast about it.

In St James in recent days, where another of the inadequate zone of special operation was introduced, the killings continue like a bad habit.

Jamaica has to get to a stage now whereby any political party that seeks State power must achieve crime control targets or be forced to step aside in the national interest. One such objective would be to reduce murders by 50 per cent in the first year on the job, and by 20 per cent in subsequent years.

If we have that in place, two things could happen: (1) political parties would contemplate going out of business and (2) Jamaicans, should any party be successful with the numbers, live in real paradise for the first time in their lives.

The thing is though, we will never be able to get such a commitment from any party that seeks political office.