Put Jamaica on firm footing with police intervention
THE EDITOR, Madam:
CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES continue to tarnish Jamaica’s image internationally. On a per capita basis, we are the crime capital of the Caribbean and Latin America. This impacts negatively on tourism, which is the major earner of foreign exchange for the economy. It seems that crime, scamming and institutionalized trickery have become the order of the day.
Crime seems to thrive on the new normal of laziness and the‘get rich quick’ mentality of the new generation. Farming has become a thing of the past and the few who dare to plant suffer at the hand of preadial larcenists. So many have developed a foreign mentality that it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that even Jamaican callaloo exported to foreign are bought there and barrelled back to Jamaica to loved ones. If Michael Manley’s self-help concepts of 1970 were not politicised and discontinued, Jamaica would ere now be the bread basket of the region but alas, today’s generation has grown up to see farming as too hard a work to engage in. It dawned on me that: More than a third of the population in Kingston lives in poverty According to the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, 2012. “The urban poor are the primary victims of high rates of crime and deadly violence, high unemployment, and inadequate housing, police protection, education, and health services.” Little wonder then that crime has become so overwhelming to a police force so overworked, underpaid, poorly equipped and living daily in omnipresent danger.
What can really be done to stem the high level of crime in Jamaica? Let me offer a few suggestions which I hope can be instructive:
1. Pay t he police decent wages so they do not become co-conspirators with the criminals. 2. Invest money in crime-fighting techniques, strategies, equipment, and armoured vehicles.
3. I nvesting i n the ongoing development of t he police, especially in their mental health, should be a top priority. Every officer should have a therapist to which they go even thrice annually to debrief and process stress and trauma.
4. Institute neighbourhood watch groups nationally and earn the trust of the citizens so they can make anonymous calls to a hotline, without fear of reprisal.
5. Create an atmosphere wherein the common man will have acknowledged and have a better interpersonal understanding/ relationship between themselves and the security forces. 6. Institute community policing with the intention of harnessing the talents of those in dire straits and the young, inquisitive, impressionable minds.
7. Be a leader in securing the welfare of the cops on the streets so that they can fulfil their respective mandates. In other words, be informed to inform the cops to be more effective.
We don’t have to be rocket scientists to recognise the unbecoming situations in society and try viable means of effectively rectifying them. I rest my case. DR BURNETT ROBINSON blpprob@aol.com