DR Raymoth Notice lamented the condition of abused prisoners in this very column six years ago. “The authorities tried to hide the situation from me, but I had seen too much. When I spoke out, they disputed my allegations. Then the prime minister (PJ Patterson) asked prominent citizens of Spanish Town to visit the prison. I was there when they saw the room filled with men with broken limbs. I could see the horror in their faces and one of them turned to me and said, ‘Doc, you were right’.” Reluctant winner lowriechin@aim.com

In counselling prisoners, Notice discovered that most of them were illiterate and had no father figure in their lives. Thank goodness for people like this former prison doctor who refuses to consign any human being to the garbage heap of life. Only last week, Notice was again calling for an overhaul of Jamaica’s penal system as the nation contemplated the inhumane conditions which led to the tragedy at the Armadale juvenile facility in which seven young girls died from a fire last May.

When we consider that ex-convicts are playing a key role in an award-winning crime prevention programme in the US, we realise how short-sighted some of us are. Dr Gary Slutkin, founder of CeaseFire in Chicago, has worked with some 700 ex-convicts who have served their time and turned their lives around with award-winning results.

Our own Dr Elizabeth Ward, chairman of the Violence Prevention Alliance (VPA), related to me how Dr Slutkin, a fellow epidemiologist, has been using disease-fighting techniques to reduce crime in Chicago. The ex-convicts act as “interrupters”, intervening in potentially explosive situations, speaking the language of the street to prevent retaliation, rapping with the mothers, the friends, enjoining them to keep communities safer.

The results of the CeaseFire programme speak volumes. Since 1995, there has been an average reduction in killings of 35 per cent. Over the past year, the “interrupters” have intervened in 286 situations that could have escalated, and have worked with 845 high-risk clients whose lives were changed by assistance with employment, continuing education and rehabilitation from drug addiction.

Slutkin was in Jamaica last week to share ideas with members of VPA. Co-chaired by the intrepid Professor Barry Chevannes, the VPA has been working closely with such organisations as the Peace Management Initiative (PMI) to help turn our local communities around. The understaffed, cashstrapped PMI has managed to work wonders in such areas as Dunkirk (off Windward Road, above Bellevue), Hannah Town, Jones Town and Allman Town.

The PMI’s young Damion Hutchinson has seen murders fall from 65 to four in his assigned area of Dunkirk. Liz Ward relates how after the Hannah Town Police was given furniture and equipment for a Homework Centre at the back of a police station, they signed up 50 children in a single day!

Liz has seen the hunger for peace in the very “men on the corner”: “There is the Jones Town United Community Council and the Hannah Town Peace Council where 25 youngsters have banded together to be defenders of the peace.”

As it is in Chicago, so is the VPA discovering how dedicated a reformed offender can be. The Community Development Council in Dunkirk is led by a returning resident who has served his time in the US prison system; in other words, this valued citizen is a “deportee”.

Seeing the difference that the Peace Management Initiative is making with such limited resources, Liz is calling for increased support for the great work being done by their leader Bishop Herro Blair, Damion, Horace Levy and Donna Parchment. “If we could only get to more of our young men who are on the verge of joining gangs, this is the most effective way to prevent violence.”

Just as there is a protocol for disease prevention, the VPA and PMI have developed a 10-point plan that has worked wherever it has been diligently applied:

• Mediation meetings – peace training in dispute resolution

• Counselling

• Inter/Intra-community cultural and sports competitions

• Health fairs

• Residential retreats and leadership conferences

• Therapeutic field trips

• Parenting and homework classes with structured, supervised after-school activities

• Income-generating projects and job placement

• School retention programmes

• Peace councils linked to the Community Development Council.

Does this work? I have seen it work up close and personal. However, as noted by sociologist Dr Claudette Crawford-Brown recently, the drawback is the stop-and-start funding. When the funding ends, we have to get creative. In our case, we tapped into the talents of the community.

Trained by experts, our residents have formed sewing and papier-mâché coops. We now have a dynamic young marketer from right there in the community, and we have been very encouraged by the results. Being a bleeding heart is just not enough. Love is not love if it is not accompanied by focus, planning and honest effort. While we are calling for the heads of this or that person, we should also be quietly pounding the pavement, writing those convoluted proposals to gain funds, and mentoring our sisters and brothers so they can break out of the dependency cycle. See you at the VPA Peace Vigil at Emancipation Park tomorrow evening from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm.

After hearing the experience of a friend who won a relatively modest sum in the Lotto, I can understand why a $240-million winner may be reluctant to make his identity known. I called a friend the morning his good fortune was carried in the press, and was surprised to hear the subdued voice of his wife. “I was afraid to answer the phone,” she said. “You are the first person who isn’t calling to beg or borrow.” Greed – another national disease.

www.lowrie-chin.blogspot.com