CHAIRMAN of the Health Committee for the Cultural, Health, Arts, Sports and Education (CHASE) Fund Dr Aggrey Irons says Jamaica needs to seek out research-based intervention methods to prevent and curtail high levels of crime and violence.

Research, Irons says, has long-term implications as it allows the government to develop policies and strategies to fight crime.

“Our whole society is crying out for violence intervention,” Irons noted during the weekly JIS Think Tank.

Emphasising that violence impacted on health, development, investment, and educational standards, Irons urged more organisations to invest in research which, he said would provide facts on social trends and indicate the policies which are best suited to address the issue of violence.

“We believe that if we follow the trends in the world, you do not just do things and determine policy based on anecdotes or just people’s feelings, but that we really need evidence-based research to fuel our interventions. We believe that the future of any development must hinge on us getting all the facts by doing hard research,” he remarked.

According to Irons, findings from recent research indicate that there are a number of factors, in addition to police interventions and crime fighting which could be used to stem the occurrence of violence, particularly in children.

This evidence, he said, was revealed in a pilot project currently funded by CHASE and carried out by Drs Julie Meeks-Gardner and Christine Powell of the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, to implement interventions to reduce aggression in primary school children.

“I think $3 million is a very small price to pay for the kind of information and interventions that we are getting from this piece of research,” he stated.

Said Irons: “Not too many organisations in the past have realised that funding research gets you much more for your money than buying two police cars, which may not be there tomorrow. This research is going to inform policy for years to come.”

Established last year, CHASE is funded by mandatory contributions made by lottery licence holders.

To date, the fund has allocated $125 million to the health sector. Of that total, 24 projects have been approved, totalling $100.6 million.