LONG-TERM solutions and not quick fixes. That’s the suggestion to authorities by deejay Agent Sasco, in order to curb the spate of violence gripping Jamaica.

For Agent Sasco (also known as Assassin) the authorities should stop focusing on certain communities when there is an upsurge in a particular area. Rather, they must look at the issue as a Jamaican problem.

“It is not a Dunkirk or East Kingston problem. When you look at it, it is the same violent acts which just pop up from community to community,” the deejay insisted.

“We really need to look into ourselves and establish why certain acts of violence take place and work towards solutions for the country as a whole… it can’t be a three-month thing. Police, soldier and curfew, and once the violence die down they move on to the next community.”

During the past two months, East Kingston has been rocked by a series of violent acts including the be-heading of a woman last weekend.

Agent Sasco spent his formative years in the troubled McIntyre Villa (Dunkirk) community of East Kingston. He told the Jamaica Observer that based on his interaction with persons in these communities, there is lack of hope.

“When you talk to the people who live in these realities one gets a sense that they feel they do not have much to live for — a sense of hopelessness. In addition they feel marginalised by the wider society.”

But he encouraged persons in these communities to look at the bigger picture.

“There is a life outside, a whole world in fact, where people are living their lives without subscribing to violence. These are not aliens, they are persons right there in these communities. I have lost so many of the people I grew up with to violence … it’s just not worth it.”

He credits his good fortune of not falling prey to violence to a number of factors.

Music tops that list. Also, his strong sense of family, the discipline enforced in school and the identification of positive role models.