WESTERN BUREAU – The Montego Bay police will, as of next week, intensify their efforts to rid the city’s game rooms of student patrons during school hours, even as they try to determine whether the operators can be prosecuted for harbouring the youngsters.

The move, the police have said, is being made in response to complaints from concerned parents about their boys who have been using their lunch money and bus fares to visit these rooms where a variety of games like pinball are on offer.

“As of Monday, we will be stepping up our efforts to rid students of this practice,” Dr Ivan Brown, the Superintendent in charge of community relations for Area One, said this week.

“We are also looking at what action can be taken against these games room operations who continue to harbour the students,” he added.

He noted, too, that some parents have filed a number of complaints about their boys to the police.

“Most of these students end up not going to school and it can’t remain like this,” Brown said.

The superintendent and a team from his office carried out a raid at one of the entertainment rooms along Union Street in the city on Monday. During the operation that was carried out at about 11:00 am, the Superintendent said, 15 uniformed male students from various high schools in St James and Hanover were found playing video games. They were from institutions including:

. Cornwall College and Anchovy High School;

. Harrison Memorial High and Albion Junior High;

. Knockalva High and Maldon High; and

. the Mount Salem Primary and Junior High,

The students, he added, were counselled by the lawmen and told to discontinue the practice.

Meanwhile, he said that the police had already identified six establishments that would be targeted to weed out the youngsters.