HOPING to fill the support vacuum left by deposed dons in some crime-ridden enclaves, government has quietly been implementing some small infrastructure projects that appear to be reaping dividends in falling crime – at least in some communities.

Projects under the Easily Achievable Targets, or EATs programme as it is called, are underway in Matthews Lane and Trench Town in Kingston, and in Spanish Town, St Catherine from which suspected criminal dons have recently been removed, police officials said.

“.Indications are that they are helping,” said Superintendent Delroy Hewitt, speaking for the Kingston West police division.

“So far, serious crimes are down this year compared with January last year,” he said.

Hewitt was instrumental in mobilising trucks and other equipment to remove garbage and clear debris from vacant lands in the Arnett Gardens area.

The EATs projects, a sub-programme of the national security ministry’s Community Security Initiative (CSI), targets basic schools and community centres for improvement work; garbage collection; cleaning of vacant lots, the provision of street lights, and even farming.

Its work is concentrated in Dunkirk, Mudd Town in Papine, August Town, Matthews Lane and the Spanish Town communities of March Pen, Tawes Pen, Ellerslie Pen and Homestead.

EATs complements the work of other state agencies in the inner-city and also bears similarity to the clean-up project started by the police, targeting abandoned buildings used as havens for criminals, for demolition.

The first demolition on Greenwich Park Road in late December was of a shop used by snipers, said deputy commissioner Mark Shields, to pick-off police targets and for reprisal attacks on residents.

Acknowledging that it was early days yet, Hewitt welcomed the signs that the implementation of these relatively simple projects seem to be helping to reduce the crime rate.

Up to late January, when he spoke to the Sunday Observer, Hewitt said there had been six murders in his division, compared with 10 at the same time last year, a situation replicated islandwide with a 23 per cent fall-off in killings for the full month, the police commissioner announced last week.

Statistics show that 71 per cent of murders take place in the metro area, incorporating Kingston, St Andrew and St Catherine – most of them in inner-city areas teeming with the urban poor. These are the communities being targeted by the CSI, which is funded by a $200-million grant from the Department for International Development in the United Kingdom.

One of the earliest EATs projects involved the Phipps Basic School in Matthews Lane.

An informed source said the basic school was founded by jailed strongman and accused murderer Donald ‘Zeeks’ Phipps, who had refurbished what was then an abandoned building in the early 1990s, in honour of his brother.

The building has now fallen into a state of disrepair.

Neville Graham, public relations officer for the Ministry of National Security, said that under the EATs project, an improved sewerage system was installed at the school, located close to the northern end of Matthews Lane.

Phipps, along with Garfield Williams, is currently on trial for the alleged murder of two men whose burnt bodies were found in April last year in a lot at Rose Lane, near their Matthews Lane stronghold.

EAT offers itself as a sort of carrot to the residents to motivate them to co-operate with the police.

“Through EATs, we identify what things we can do immediately to make a difference in people’s lives,” Graham said, adding that the projects were chosen without any political consideration.

The next target is Craig Town to remove derelict buildings, collect garbage, clear open lots and replace street lights to improve security.

The work of CSI, which is headed by Colonel Oral Khan, senior director for strategic planning for the security ministry, is guided by infrastructure and physical planning, surveys of vacant land and living conditions, recreational facilities, and commercial, industrial and social factors.

Over in Spanish Town, where slain don Donovan ‘Bulbie’ Bennett had dominated up to his death on October 30, Member of Parliament for South Central St Catherine, Sharon Hay-Webster has embraced an inner-city farming project expected to get underway soon.

“We have already cleared the land in Rivoli, Railway, and De La Vega City, and we’re about to get seeds and farming tools,” she said.

The Rivoli project is expected to employ 20 persons in several rotations.

Hay-Webster says CSI’s work has reduced the need for controversial meetings that the politicians had with gang members, like those brokered last year and put on hold after a One Order gang member shot up Grange’s car, killing one man, as they left a meeting in Spanish Town in September.

“I don’t know if we will have to get back to those meetings if these (CSI) activities get underway,” said Hay-Webster.

Roman Catholic priest, Monsignor Richard Albert, who is involved with social intervention projects in parts of Spanish Town – including De La Vega City, March Pen, Jones Pen and Shelter Rock – said several projects had been identified and sent to the national security ministry for approval.

“We will be fixing a community centre and creating a market from a large, unoccupied building,” Albert said, stressing the urgent need to resocialise the people.

“What’s most needed are programmes of parenting and socialisation. We hope to conduct some workshops to change the thinking of the people while giving them skills,” said the Roman Catholic priest.

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