Mark Shields is right, but...

The Editor, Sir:

While I must say I am in total agreement with Mark Shields that the current crime-fighting strategies are quick fixes, he needs to understand that the Jamaican situation is unique, and therefore a national DNA database, along with more police posts, will never bring violent crimes to a manageable level in Jamaica. Utterances like these from someone who was at one time the CHIEF person with responsibility for investigations in the Jamaica Constabulary Force give false hope to the people of Jamaica.

He needs to be cognisant of the fact that most murders and violent crimes are a result of organised criminal networks with links that spread across Europe, the USA, and Canada. These men, although they are Jamaicans, will never subject themselves for their DNA to be taken voluntarily.

The national voters' list is an example of how gang members operate - most gang members who live in Jamaica never vote. This is because they will not give their fingerprints, especially in anything in which the State is involved, as it may be used against them later.

Training and employment

What is needed, therefore, is for the Government to implement strategies that will create meaningful training and employment for the young, poor, and dispossessed, while providing proper guidance to those who are at risk in the short term. The medium- to long-term actions will have to involve correcting the anomaly that now exists between class/race, along with the impression that there are two justice systems operating in Jamaica - one for Mr Big, and the other for the small man.

Only then can high-visibility policing, coupled with hard-core work that respects human rights, help Jamaica sustain acceptable levels of crime. Community policing, therefore, will become the linchpin of the way forward.

I have to inform Mr Shields that the occurrence of violent crimes in Jamaica has been a slow process that started during slavery, but escalated right after. Independence put a temporary break on violent crime, but politics soon re-energised the people to engage again.

Use of force

The model of policing adopted for Jamaica by his countrymen was one that believes in the use of force to seek compliance rather than the model used in England and established by Sir Robert Peel at the time. The progression then led to the police doing what the people in the upper class wanted them to do, as it was they who controlled the means of production at that time, and the laws were made to benefit them.

The widening of the gap between the rich and the poor has caused most of the poor to adopt the hustling and squatting mentally. The drugs, extortion, etc, which followed, are the main reasons for the types of violent crimes that we are seeing today as they were not addressed immediately, because the rich were also involved.

The piecemeal approach can no longer provide the outcomes that are needed to reduce crime in Jamaica. That time has long passed. Only a holistic approach involving social intervention from the bottom, reform of the entire justice system (police, courts, correctional services), along with training and the use of the latest technologies, will work.

I am, etc.,

IAN HAUGHTON

ianhaughton@cwjamaica.com