HEAD of the Mobile Reserve, Assistant Commissioner Winchroy Budhoo, said on January 9 that the police would be making an all-out assault on crime. He said he would be calling on the public for help, and he will be “seeking spiritual guidance as they move to confront members of the criminal underworld”.

Since my approach to problem solving is premised on the belief that pertinent questions must be asked early, first: why have the police waited this long to make this “all-out assault” on crime?

Actually, he spoke in the future tense; something they will be doing. So, we should ask, when might we see this and what will it look like?

And, in this presumed God-police-public crime-fighting trifecta, who is responsible for what?

From a common-sense perspective, as well as the real need to find a solution to a pressing problem, it is incumbent on the police to clarify each role. Otherwise, we could end up in a scenario where the public is waiting for the police to do their jobs, like a professionally trained organisation; the police are waiting for God to do something unspecified/undefined; and God is expecting us to do something with the gift of thought and intellect that he has already given us.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the inertia around the crime that has bedevilled us now for more than 40 years?

With each brutal murder — such as the case of teenager Franciena Johnson and her cousin Nadia Fearon in Clarendon; Dunoon Technical High School student John-Michael Hett; and Mona Primary School teacher Paul Watson, currently in the news — the public is increasingly impatient with the police and with National Security Minister Peter Bunting.

This agitation should not be interpreted as hostility.

Rather, it is a productivity issue. The police are not doing enough to prevent crimes or to solve them after they have been committed. The data is compelling on that. The reasons, however, need to be fully examined and understood and different approaches adopted. It is insanity, as Einstein said, to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.

As for Minister Bunting, he was thrust seemingly unprepared into the role. He came only with his reputation as a successful banker. The assumption surely was that the same skills that allowed him to succeed would have carried over into his role as head of the security ministry. It is not an altogether unreasonable assumption since some skills are transferrable — analysis, creativity, initiative, reasoning, and persistence, for example.

Demonstrably, he has been number-crunching, and he has cited the need for capacity building within the police force and for changed norms and values in the public realm.

The problem is that not only are these longer-term initiatives, but without specific action they are as meaningful as the police “going to” do something.

On Bunting’s call to faith last year, and again last Sunday, it is not at all damning, particularly when he outlines what he believes the church can do to infuse the society with a different kind of value system. The difficulty comes from two sources. First, the question of the role of the Church versus that of the State, and second, the extent to which he seems ready to cede tremendous responsibility to the Church, thereby absolving himself and his Government from theirs.

Recently, the United Nations published its list of the 20 most homicidal countries in the world. Jamaica effectively ranked fourth behind Honduras, El Salvador and Côte d’Ivoire on the basis of 2010 figures when there were 1428 murders. And, early last year, Washington-based online news site, The Huffington Post ran a story titled ’10 Terribly Overrated Destinations (And Where To Travel Instead)’. It did not specify Jamaica, but advised against travelling to the Caribbean since “too many of the islands are depressingly violent, pathetically corrupt, and/or hopelessly dysfunctional”.

With this kind of reputation, tourism — our biggest foreign exchange earner — is always vulnerable. It is also why we are unable to market the Kingston Metropolitan Area as an attractive tourist destination. More than that, though, our citizens deserve to live in safe communities — a basic responsibility of any competent Government.

The problem is difficult, but not insurmountable. For a start, it is clear, from a basic problem-solving perspective, that the police are not fully exploiting available resources or employing common-sense strategies. There are many examples of cities and countries that have aggressively addressed issues of crime and violence and yielded good results.

New York City comes to mind. From 2, 245 murders in 1990, the city reported 419 murders in 2012. So does Rwanda which, emerging from genocide in 1994, is now targeting economic growth on par with Brazil over the next 10 years.

Last week, a reader invited me to look at Monterrey, a province in Mexico with a long history of violence. It peaked in 2010 when the Zetas and So Oxxo cartel tore neighbourhoods apart with murders, rapes, robberies, and carjacking.

Among its bold initiatives, the Government fired or jailed 4,200 police officers after they failed lie detector and other tests — a necessary move to purge the force of gang infiltration by drug dealers — and drafted the army to keep order. The force was ultimately disbanded and a new one recruited with financial, technical and human resources help from the private sector. Private sector entities also helped to redesign neighbourhoods to provide for better amenities for at-risk populations.

There is a need for similarly bold initiatives in our context, for resolve and partnership. The Government needs to create the policy framework and provide leadership, the private sector needs to put some money where its mouth is, and the public needs to respect the laws and assist the police with information and by not harbouring criminals, among other duties of responsible citizenship.

The police, meanwhile, should not seek to deflect their responsibility onto the citizens. They must do their jobs as the professionals in the mix.

As for God, he will only help those who help themselves.

gvirtue@usa.net