Top cop wants public’s help to fight crime
POLICE COMMISSIONER Dr Carl Williams is calling for more partnerships with Jamaicans at all levels of the society to assist the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) to fight crime.
Speaking at a town hall meeting at the Montego Bay Cultural Centre in Sam Sharpe Square, St James, on May 28, the commissioner said these partnerships would play a vital role in mending broken fences between the police and the public and would also give members of the JCF a clear indication of the people they serve and protect.
“The police must go out in communities as they have been doing. The police must interact with citizens, develop their trust and develop the confidence. Partnership is the only way that we can achieve this,” Williams emphasised.
CITIZEN POLICING
The commissioner said members of t he JCF’s Community and Security Unit would be playing a lead role in the efforts to bring the communities and the police together in addressing crime and violence.
“This whole thrust is premised on the principle that the police cannot solve the problems of the communities all by themselves. The whole society has a stake in the policing of itself,” he argued.
He noted that in the building of partnerships, there would be criminal elements who would continue to resist, but that could be countered by the law-abiding majority who desire peace and violent-free communities.