TWO weeks into the government’s latest anti-crime offensive, the security forces are not only claiming success, but have warned the criminals that the assault against them will be unrelenting.

But the aim is not only to push back the bad men, the heads of the police and army have stressed, but to win the hearts and minds of people in crime-riddled communities, who, often out of fear, provide cover for those who would prey on them.

“The cynics and the preachers of doom, gloom and hopelessness will not distract us,” said Police Commissioner Francis Forbes yesterday. “We will not fear. We will not tire. We will never get weary and we will never give up. We are here to stay. And we will.”

Perhaps symbolically, Forbes chose not to give his undertaking from his offices on Old Hope Road in St Andrew or elsewhere in uptown Kingston.

Instead, he and the chief of staff of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin, took journalists into the heart of inner-city Jamaica, Tavares Gardens (Payne Lands) in South West St Andrew where the operation began and where the police and military have established an operations base.

There is a clear effort to engage the community and to isolate criminals, in a mixture of hard and soft policing, aimed, according to the government, at confronting terrorist gunmen and breaking the backs of criminal gangs.

So yesterday, Forbes and Lewin talked with members of the Payne Lands community, had an occasional frolic with children and sought to demonstrate that this initiative was not only about being tough on those who tote guns and rob and kill.

For instance, the president of the Junior Doctors Association, Dr Collin Graham announced that the JDA will on December 16 run a health clinic at Payne Avenue. He also announced that staff of the Kingston Public Hospital have started an outreach programme by adopting the North Street Basic School and will provide free health care to the toddlers.

Additionally, Maxine Wilson of the Palisadoes Co-operative Credit Union presented Forbes with a cheque for $100,000 to finance police outreach programmes in inner-city communities.

Underlining the multi-sectoral approach to this latest effort at fighting crime, Lewin stressed that this was “another knee-jerk reaction to the escalating incidents of crime and violence”. More than 980 people have been murdered in Jamaica so far this year.

Among the strategic aims of the JDF in this operation, Lewin said, was “winning the hearts and minds of citizens in the targeted communities” and to providing a security umbrella to isolate and displace criminal elements.

Indeed, Forbes said that he was particularly gratified by “the relationship which is being forged” between the police and the citizens so far, during the operations that have taken the security forces into communities such as Hannah Town and Denham Town in West Kingston and Grants Pen in North East St Andrew.

Curfews have been imposed, individuals and premises searched. And there has been success.

“The security forces have seized 26 illegal firearms and 98 rounds of ammunition (and) arrested a number of persons for various crimes including murder, shooting and illegal possession of firearms,” Forbes said. “We have detained several persons for questioning, some of whom have faced identification parades and have been charged. Others will be facing identification parades (while) some have been questioned and released.”

In the two weeks of the operations up to yesterday, the security forces had mounted 246 road blocks and searched 538 premises in the targetted areas.

But there is the social aspect of the initiative, too.

Said Forbes: “We have cleaned up tons of garbage, cleared several blocked roads, bulldozed several derelict buildings, removed old vehicles, refrigerators and stoves that were lying on sidewalks ready to be used to create illegal (road) blocks and we have cleared several open lots in the operational areas.”

But the real proof of success, Forbes said, to which the security forces were committed, was when there was a halt to the murders, most of the guns were out of the hands of the criminals, drug pushers were removed from neighbourhoods and women could feel protected from rapists

In this regard, Lewin stressed that among the operational priorities of the JDF was to assist in “rebuilding community leadership, organisations and social services” while executing focused intelligence-driven operations.

He warned, however, that there was “no overnight solution to the crime problem”.