A new print ad by the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPSCo) that juxtaposes the image of the innocent child against the implied violence of an electric chair was being condemned last night as a gratuitous attempt to manipulate emotions and an exploitation of children.

“(The advertisement) is disturbing and in poor taste,” said Susan Goffe, chairman of the rights group, Jamaicans for Justice.

Betty-Ann Blaine, who heads the child advocacy group, Hear the Children’s Cry Committee, described the advertisement, which appeared in weekend newspapers, as “a denigration of children”.

The ad, with hints of the clothing company, United Colors of Benneton’s controversial commercials of the 1990s, is part of a new campaign by JPSCo, the light and power company, to draw attention to the cost, and danger, of electricity theft, by using provocative images.

The ads were produced by Patrick Waldemar’s advertising agency, Waterworks, which has often won plaudits for its creativity.

In the ad that triggered yesterday’s anger, a bright-eyed baby girl, wearing diapers and vest, sits in a large electric chair set against a darkened background. The advertisement warns that stealing electricity is a crime which can result in a fine of up to $100,000 or an imprisonment of eight years, “or a death sentence for someone innocent”.

Another ad, which began running earlier, depicts a bullet shattering an electric bulb whose filament is still lit, with the warning: “When people ‘tief light’ they are shooting your electricity costs up”.

JPSCo, which has over half-a-million customers, estimates that it has 35,000 to 40,000 illegal connections to its system, accounting for between seven and eight per cent of its energy output. JPSCo puts its loss from electricity theft at about US$20 million a year.

Since the US firm Mirant Corporation bought an 80 per cent stake in JPSCo two years ago, it has stepped up its anti-theft campaign, moving into inner-city communities with the police to disconnect wires roughly strewn across its mains from people’s homes.

The company has also had to disconnect illegal connections in upper-class neighbourhoods, such as Norbrook in St Andrew, where more sophisticated methods of electricity theft are utilised.

But this new element in its campaign, which has already triggered outrage, is likely to be greeted with even deeper furore as child welfare and anti-violence agencies reopen today after the long holiday weekend.

Winsome Callum, JPSCo’s head of corporate communications, said that the advertisements were aimed at raising public awareness that electricity theft was a crime which could also lead to a loss of life and property.

“Very often it is the children who are victims of the illegal activities of adults,” Callum said last night. “They often die in fires caused by illegal connections, or they are electrocuted by illegal wires around their homes.”

Callum claimed that since the start of the campaign with the bullet and bulb ad a week ago, reports to the power company’s offices about electricity theft had increased. Figures were not immediately available.

Callum said that the ads had gone before focus groups.

“But we did not get advocacy groups to do it,” she said.

Hear the Children’s Blaine was surprised that the JPSCo had not given the child welfare issue substantial thought before deciding on the ad.

“(We are) incensed and outraged that a major national corporate entity like JPSCo could publish an advertisement with a baby sitting in an electric chair,” she said.

She did not believe that the message of the advertisement would reach the people “who are the perpetrators of the crime of stealing electricity”.

Blaine suggested that JPSCo would be better served putting “its money into the development of the inner-city communities, which would essentially end this problem (of electricity theft)”.

“The culprit is really poverty,” Blaine said.