THE EDITOR, Sir:
SOMETHING MUST be radically wrong with our systems of security and justice why so few people with criminal mind and intent can perpetually terrorise our country from coast to coast with such great impunity and callous disregard for humanity. Fear and hopelessness are fast becoming our constant companions as we are all overwhelmed by criminality and 'badness'.
There was a time when criminal offences (including rapes and murders) would only take place under the cover of darkness but criminality has become so institutionalised and oppressively commonplace that neither time of day nor witnesses are a deterrents or impediments to such awful crimes.
Fear, hopelessness and insecurity have become the hallmark by which some of us must live and survive as hostages in our own homes, particularly in neighbourhoods where the gun, and the threat of its use, keep us either blind, dumb, deaf or as silent as the grave.
While our government says that crime is under control, most of us who live in the real Jamaican world can tell a different story, especially the families of the victims of crime, who must face other obstacles, including the police and the courts. I am learning to forget my personal experiences and difficulties with praedial larceny and the daylight theft of our pick-up within 15 minutes of having parked it on the very busy Spanish Town Road.
If the statistics on the criminal conviction rates and ratios were not so dismal then the level of apathy and 'jungle-justice' that now exist would not be so frightening. Even children who have had to resort to "stoning police and police station" have lost faith, hope and trust in the systems that prevail. Most of us recognise that the equation of justice and security for all is not so simple and the police most of all, reflect the beliefs of our society.
"If our government has no money to pay the official hangman, there were plenty people who would do that job for free"...so said a policeman on the weekend, to much applause and sounds of acclamation. But we must look before and beyond the hangman, lest the burden of bitterness, anger and grief consume us.
I am, etc.,
SONIA CHRISTIE
Stewart Town
Trelawny
