IN a raid that was routine, frustrating and potentially dangerous, electricians from the Jamaica Public Service Company yesterday pulled down hundreds of illegal electrical connections in New Haven along Washington Boulevard in Kingston, and communities along Spanish Town Road.

The JPSCo workers, escorted by four police officers — including two carrying M-16 rifles — removed 370 illegal connections.

Police, during the raid, arrested Sharon Kelly, 37, of Kingston 11, and Tanisha Edwards of Gully Bank, Weymouth Drive.

All in all, it was a routine day for the special unit of the JPSCo, which targets some of the 120,000 to 150,000 illegal connections estimated to exist islandwide, in rich and poor areas alike.

JPSCo estimates that the illegal connections cost the company US$20 million last year, and that nine per cent of electricity produced by the company is lost due to theft. Honest Jamaicans pay more, as a consequence.

According to the company, most electricity theft is concentrated in inner-city communities and urban areas, although the problem is islandwide.

Arriving at 10:30 am in New Haven in white vans, the JPSCo technicians, covered by the police, went quickly to work.

Up and down a gnarled dirt road, the illegal connections were easy to spot: Electrical wires strung crudely over power lines, which then ran into ramshackle dwellings in the poor community.

This year, JPSCo workers on such raids have removed 44,782 illegal connections during 231 raids.

What’s frustrating to the JPSCo workers is that such raids are part of a constant cat-and-mouse game.

“By this evening, many of the lines will be back up,” said George S Kates, JPSCo’s general manager of asset protection, who stood near a group of sullen residents who watched with few protests.

Sometimes, JPSCo workers are met with stones and even gunshots. One employee suffered a gunshot wound several years ago.

Such raids may seem futile, said Kates, but they usually encourage at least a handful of residents to legalise their illegal electrical connections.

Only about 20 people are arrested per month, he said. It would not be worth the trouble to prosecute all offenders, but the raids at least send a message to those involved in electricity thefts, he said.

People convicted of electricity theft face imprisonment of up to five years and fines of $7,000 to $100,000.

“People is poor; not all of them can pay,” said Jennifer Brooks, 45, of New Haven, who criticised the raid for depriving people of a basic necessity.

She and others complained that JPSCo often fail to send meter readers to check meters, but instead charge based on “average usage” that seems too expensive.

Kates, though, said meters are read at least every two months. The government is now attempting to make arrangements for people to receive electricity — legally and safely — if they can’t afford it, he said.

Although people stealing electricity frequently plead poverty, Kates said they often have no problem paying for cable TV, televisions, and cell phones.

He added that home fires are often caused by illegal connections.

To Kates, a major reason for electricity theft is that many people live in a culture in which they expect to have electricity for free.

“I meet people who say they have been living in these areas for 20 years, and they have never paid for electricity,” he said. Such a “culture,” he said, can be traced back to the days when JPSCo was a government-owned company, one that was reluctant, for political reasons, to demand that potential voters pay for a public service.