MANDEVILLE, Manchester – A government run by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) would make this central highlands town a model in the fight against crime, shadow spokesman for national security, Derrick Smith, said on Wednesday.

“We intend to start with Mandeville as a model town in terms of zero tolerance as it relates to law and order,” Smith told local business and community leaders at a Manchester Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Manchester Golf Club.

“We have to regain basic law and order throughout Jamaica, and it is our intention as an incoming administration to begin with the town of Mandeville and to move on after we would have perfected the situation here,” Smith told his audience which included National Security Minister Peter Phillips.

The minister later delivered the main address providing a comprehensive analysis of Jamaica’s crime problem and the efforts by his government to deal with it.

Wednesday’s luncheon highlighted the Closed to Crime Initiative launched recently by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce which embraces an anti-crime partnership between the business community in the parish and the local police.

Speaking in the context that parliamentary elections are constitutionally due before November, Smith said his party, which has been in Opposition for over 18 years, had found itself with “time” to plan and prepare itself for tackling Jamaica’s vexed crime problem once it assumes office.

Smith said the JLP’s election manifesto, which he expects to be available “in approximately two weeks”, would provide details on how his party intended to tackle crime and violence.

He reiterated that a JLP-commissioned study of crime which was led by former Commissioner of Police Colonel Trevor McMillan would provide the basis for the anti-crime drive.

The “road map to a safe and secure Jamaica” incorporated four main headings: a breaking of the link between crime and politics; the dismantling of garrisons; the transformation of Jamaica’s security forces; and reform of the justice system, Smith said.

To sustain the anti-crime fight, a JLP government, he said, would place budgetary priority on national security.

“We have committed ourselves that for the first three years of a new administration, the bulk of the budget of that government will be towards the portfolio of national security. So all these shortages that we are talking about, all these unacceptable working conditions .we intend to tackle these within three years of the new administration,” Smith explained.

He said the JLP had arrived at that position because “We have accepted that crime is the number one problem .and we will be dealing with that portfolio (National Security) as the priority notwithstanding difficulties we face with education, notwithstanding difficulties in health and in other areas of infrastructure .”.

Regarding the decision to place early emphasis on Mandeville and Manchester though it was “perhaps the safest parish in Jamaica”, Smith said there was need to provide an example of law and order for Jamaicans.

“I am not saying this to scare anyone; I am not saying this to scare vendors; to scare taximen .but I am stating that we intend to begin with the town of Mandeville to make it an example to the wider Jamaica of how law and order should be maintained in a commercial centre,” said Smith.