We are making a difference, says PMI West boss
WESTERN BUREAU: HAIRMAN OF the western Jamaica arm of the Peace Management Initiative (PMI), Reverend Everton Jackson, is strongly urging the Government to reconsider its decision to cut funding for the violence-intervention programme, arguing that crime would have been worse without the group’s input.
In an interview with The Gleaner earlier this week, Jackson said that the PMI has helped to refocus youths away from a life of crime.
“Every violence producer that has been redirected is a success story,” said Jackson.
It was recently announced that the PMI, which was launched in 2002, would be withdrawn from over 40 volatile communities across Jamaica during the first quarter of 2020.
Among the programmes to be halted as a result of this move is the national violence-interruption programme, where 130 peace advocates are sent to communities in St James, Kingston, St Catherine, Westmoreland, Hanover, and Clarendon to prevent conflicts from escalating. Earlier this month, National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang told the House of Representatives that the efforts of the PMI and other social-intervention programmes to curb crime and violence were not working. He
Csuggested, instead, that emphasis be placed on improving various aspects of the security forces.
But in responding to that declaration, Jackson argued that the PMI was intended to work in unison with the efforts of the police to address crime.
“The fact that violence has continued unabated is not an indictment on social intervention agencies, but on those who are responsible for law and order. We’ve played our part, and social intervention is intended to complement the work of the security forces, so while I agree that more can be done, certainly we’re not going to lay down arms,” said Jackson.
“The PMI has been employed by the national security ministry to deliver a programme. If in their judgement they don’t want to renew the contract, that’s their right, but the data doesn’t support a discontinuation of the violence-interruption programme.”
“I make no apology for saying that the current mechanism of social intervention has not worked [and] is not working,” Chang told Parliament, in expressing his lack of confidence in the measure.