Greater support needed to fight crime, says Bunting
Published:Saturday | April 13, 2013 | 12:00 AM
Nedburn Thaffe, Gleaner Writer
National Security Minister Peter Bunting has said that limited investment in national security over the years has been a major factor impeding the fight against crime and violence in Jamaica.
Bunting, who was delivering a lecture at the Norman Manley Law School, University of the West Indies, Mona, on Thursday night, pointed to a study done on Central American and Caribbean countries, which shows that the countries which have invested heavily in their crime-fighting machinery have managed to significantly reduce the number of violent crimes.
"What is interesting is that all these countries coming down with plus or minus one or two per cent (reduction in serious crimes) invest or engage about one per cent of their population in public security.
"One point three per cent of Colombia's population is employed in public security - either the army or the police force. They have managed to reduce their murder rate from being the highest in the world, six or seven years ago, to now what is still high but is considerably 25 per cent lower than Jamaica's (per capita)."
"Surprisingly, for a country that has had such a high level of violent crime for such a long time, we actually have a very low investment in addressing the issue."
Bunting pointed to the police forensic lab, which he said "is essentially the same capacity when it was built in the early 1990s", as proof that not enough money has gone into crime fighting.
"Look at the number of crimes committed then versus now, it has grown exponentially. Again, if you look at the number of police officers we have in relation to our population, it is among the lowest in the entire region," he told The Gleaner.
When asked where he believed the blame for this should go, Bunting said: "I don't want to put my finger on any one administration.
"Part of the problem is that we don't have an economy that can afford (the necessary investment), so it's kind of a chicken-and-egg situation. But my point is that unless we get some measure of success on the crime-prevention side and the crime-control side, we are always going to have the challenges to make the economy grow," he said.
STRIDES MADE
He argued that strides had been made in upgrading the Jamaica Constabulary Force's computer database and fingerprint-identification system.
"We are also investing a lot in terms of upgrading the calibre of personnel we have there. Over the last few years, we have been recruiting a lot of university graduates into the police academy as constables. The requirement is only five [Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate subjects] and it would be exceptional 10 or 15 years ago to get one or two university graduates. Now, it is commonplace that we have university graduates in our intake," Bunting said.