... Jamaica, IDB collaborating for 17 years on anti-crime strategies
THE RELATIONSHIP between Jamaica and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) spans roughly 47 years. However, both have collaborated on national security for 17 years.
Asked if the IDB has failed in helping Jamaica tackle its crime woes, IDB general manager in charge of six Caribbean countries (including Jamaica), Therese Turner-Jones, told The Gleaner that the Development Bank is not disappointed with its progress locally, simply because fixing crime is not a mission to accomplish overnight.
“How do people get into crime in the first place? The ecosystem for breeding criminals is not something you can just uproot in two to five years, especially when combined with socio-economic conditions, in a country that has not seen a lot of economic opportunities come up over several decades. If jobs are hard to find because the economy is contracting, then there aren’t many opportunities for people who don’t have high skills or who don’t have any skills,” She shared with a Gleaner Editors’ Forum last week.
“You see this all over the world, where men, especially, will find themselves in criminal activity. A lot of the crime in Jamaica is organised crime, whether it is the drug culture or whether it is cocaine coming from Latin America, travelling to the United States. I think crime pays, if you can get away with murder, literally. The system is not working fairly, the way it should, without corruption. People will continue criminal activities because it is profitable.”
Turner-Jones stressed, “I think the homicide rate of 58 per 100,000 is extremely high. It’s not comfortable. It’s a constraint, because maybe you wanted to go out tonight but you are not going to go because you are afraid. All of that are intangibles that are difficult to measure but they all constrain economic activity and potential.”