The continued bombardment of violence and killings in Jamaica is very disheartening to a nation, that towards the latter part of last year, had begun to see a reasonable reduction in murders. The problem is that the perpetrators of these heartless activities have really been great statisticians, in their own rights.
These scum, which are few but have significant influence adversely on our Jamaican society, have really sat back and have been analysing the probability of their getting away with their daily atrocities. They seem to have had a mental and thorough calculation of how unlikely it is for them to be brought to justice.
They know that of the thousand crimes or more, they commit each year, a mere handful of them will ever be charged and even worse, a fewer number (a miniscule number) of them will be brought to justice. The latter is due to the fact, it certainly would appear, that some in authority or those having access to incriminating materials (read evidence), are being paid to remove evidence, files, etc, or the overwhelming numbers of witnesses are just too scared to come forward, or just can’t do so with the risk of losing out on their regular remittances from these criminal thugs that they use to take care of themselves and children. This is a vicious cycle. One that must be cracked immediately, to change the way the criminals operate.
There needs to be radical changes in the way the powers-that-be conduct their affairs.
Here are some suggestions that will, directly or indirectly, strangle this vicious cyle of criminal stronghold on our beautiful nation:
The Witness Protection Programme must not merely come on stream but must be sold effectively to the public so they can be assured that they will not die by the hands of criminals in coming forward to expose criminals and have them brought to justice.
I am somewhat more optimistic than the former Police Commissioner, Mr. Lucius Thomas, for the future, with respect to crime in Jamaica, in the year 2007. I believe that if the foregoing recommendations are adhered to, and Commisioner’s office acts on the intelligence it has according to reports in the media, the upcoming elections will be relatively peaceful.
Joshua Spencer is an educator, author and poet in Toronto
joshuaspencer@rogers.com
Joshua Spencer is an educator, author and poet. He writes out of Toronto Canada