Technology the only way to fight crime

THE EDITOR, Sir:

THE MURDER tally continues to rise for one reason: the perpetrators know that they can get away with it because of two reasons: no one is willing to talk to the police and no one is willing to give ‘I see you’ evidence in court.

Therefore, the crime plan must be: get rid of the ‘I see you’ evidence and use technological evidence.

The Government must make a massive investment in drones and surveillance cameras. Look at what is being done in other jurisdictions that are successfully fighting crime. They are all using security camera footage to identify the perpetrators, by putting it on public TV and asking the public’s help.

The Government should give tax breaks/incentives to companies to import cameras as cheaply as possible. Once a crime is committed all the police would have to do is review the footage and post it on the national TV and ask the public’s help in identifying the culprit.

This would be a big deterrent to crime as well as beneficial to Jamaica: the camera never sleeps; the camera will never say ‘I cannot recall’; the police will always have hard evidence for convictions; no culprit will know that their chances of being caught is almost a surety and still do it. So far, footage from all the security cameras have all led to arrest, and this would create employment for our youths to install these household cameras.

NORVAL THOMPSON