Mandeville, Manchester – Even against the bleak backdrop of the murder of high-profile Mandeville business couple Richard and Julia Lyn at the close of 2006, Manchester’s police chief Michael James says the view that crime is rampant in his parish is “a perception, not a fact”.

Indeed, despite a hike in murders, shootings and robberies, Superintendent James says the crime figures back him up.

Police blotters show that there were 271 major crimes reported in this south central highlands parish last year, compared to 309 in 2005. That’s a reduction of 13 per cent.

But murders, shootings and robberies struck sour notes. Murders moved up from 22 in 2005 to 27 last year, while shootings doubled from 14 in 2005 to 28 in 2006, and there were 68 reported robberies up from 62 in 2005.

Reports of break-ins were down from 130 in 2005 to 73 last year and another area of major concern – rape – was down to 38 from 43 the previous year in terms of reported incidents.

Of the 27 murders, James says 13 were cleared up, meaning arrests have been made, while of the 271 major crimes, 99 have been cleared up.

The Manchester police had targeted a 20 per cent reduction as the year approached its close, but the “spike” in criminal activity in November and December as the Christmas season approached scuttled that target.

Regarding the often repeated concerns that Manchester’s large and prosperous returned residents’ community is being targeted by criminals, James said the situation had improved considerably despite a persistent perception to the contrary. He said a number of arrests early last year had dealt a major blow to criminal activity against returned and returning residents.

The police have also sought to encourage returning, returned and overseas Jamaicans to keep the police in the loop when they are travelling and making transactions. “We say to them, ‘speak to us’ and we believe that kind of interaction is making a difference,” James says.

James readily concedes that “resource constraints”, which, he stresses, is a country-wide problem for the police force, negatively affect the ability of the Manchester police to “deploy” and develop strategies against criminals.

“The fact is that the parish continues to grow, both in terms of the business and residential areas,” says James. “And so, in order to really deal with the threat in terms of the preventative side of crime-fighting, the police department needs the commensurate human and material resources to maintain greater visibility. And so, when we have a situation where roads continue to get more congested because more people are now driving, more businesses are opening, more residents are developing and your policing resources remain static, you are going to have a difficulty.”

While declining to give base figures in either human or material terms, James says his division needs “a minimum of another 40 per cent of the numbers that we have.”

Giving examples of the difficulties faced by the police, James notes that the Manchester police aim to “respond to a citizens within 20 minutes”. However, current “vehicular capacity does not allow that. When we do not have sufficient vehicles continuously deployed, then you cannot respond as you want to… Everybody wants to see you as soon as they finish talking to you and you have to be out there, you have to be somewhere near to be able to respond, so you sometimes have to ‘prioritise’, depending on the nature of the call, to assign or reassign the units depending on the complaints that you get”.

The reality, says James, is that the management of the police often has to divert resources from areas not seen as having high crime rates, such as Manchester and St Elizabeth, to other areas such as Montego Bay, May Pen and Westmoreland where criminal activity is far more evident.

“It is a policing thing.,” says James. “Just like how in this division, I will have to reassess and redeploy my personnel based on what I have to deal with .the management of the organisation at the national level must do the same thing. So if St James is having a major difficulty, then the only way to get some police is from another division that is not having those challenges . that’s the decision you have to take.

The resource problems apart, James argues that ordinary citizens can be of greater help in the fight against criminals if they develop a culture of awareness.

He notes that strong relationships have been forged with various organisations, including neighbourhood watch groups, lay magistrates, the returned and returning residents associations and the chamber of commerce, but there remains a great need for the “average citizens out there to be partners in the process of making their communities safe”.

All too often, he says, people ignore suspicious activities only to say later – long after the crime had been committed – “yuh know sey mi did see.”

“We (police) are saying we need to move to another stage, so that whenever you see anything suspicious you call 311, 811, 119 and pass on the information to the police, and good citizens need to have the number of their local police station,” says James.

Communities and citizens, adds James, need “to take ownership of the policemen and women in their communities”, much more than is now the case. This “ownership”, James argues, is easier for rural communities than urban centres “because in those (rural) communities the police and the community have a greater level of interaction. the more rural you go, the greater the police/community interaction; the more urban the policing environment, there is a distancing of the community from the police”.