IT'S THE visuals of crime-fighting - the guns, the speeding cars with flashing lights and blaring sirens, the crime-scene tapes and the authoritative uniforms - that generally grab the most attention. But fighting crime efficaciously anywhere, is much more than that. It is brain-wracking, unrelenting, painstaking work. And, don't care how well-equipped or fully-staffed a police force is, and no matter the persuasive stridency of the rhetoric, if the political will isn't forthcoming and if the professionalism and integrity of the police are not there to enforce that will, criminality will continue to flourish.
It doesn't matter how successful the police are, each day the fight against rampant and brazen, cold-blooded criminality, poses new daunting challenges. So, no wonder Commissioner Francis Forbes and his Police High Command have had to return to the drawing board to reconfigure the much vaunted crime-curtailing initiatives implemented in December.
A significant component of the architecture of crime in Jamaica has to be its segment of the international drug trade. Cocaine especially, that so-easily renewable commodity, generates such vast amounts of money, that it puts into the hands of the syndicates which traffick it through Jamaica from Colombia to North America and Europe, the power to corrupt all but those of utmost probity, providing a safe operating environment, despite the occasional temporary disruption of the trade. And bear in mind that the proliferation of illegal arms, used to enforce and to extort, is an essential component of this trade.
The 21st century has produced a new type of criminal - daring shrewd, calculating and ruthless with the smartest among them managing seemingly always, to keep a step ahead of the police. As the police learn from their successes, so too do the gang chiefs learn from their defeats. Crime has become globalised, with some syndicates having active tentacles right here in Jamaica, using smarter methods to avoid detection, to conceal, to transport, and to commit crimes of violence, having been directed by their principals abroad, the sophisticated and ingenious strategies to operate by.
Just as legitimate businesses the world over have developed new management techniques, involving the use of the latest in technology and equipment, and financial cunning, so have criminal gangs and their linkages in Jamaica.
So this is what Commissioner Forbes and his Jamaica Constabulary Force have to face, in addition to the power of the enormous corruptive wealth of some of these criminal gangs.
The police need the co-operation of the wider public and to form more and stronger alliances with law enforcement agencies in this hemisphere and elsewhere. And while the Jamaica Constabulary grapple with the crimes of the day, we hope that neither the Organised Crime Unit nor the Financial Investigations Division of the Ministry of Finance and Planning will be spared quality personnel and resources, as getting at the vast wealth of the crime gangs as they seek to launder their money, is one of the surest ways of taking them down.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
