DERRICK Smith, the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) spokesman on national security, believes improved mobility, an increase in the ratio of police personnel to citizens, accountability, as well as better pay and fringe benefits for the police are among the measures that could help to decrease the country’s murder toll.

As such, Smith said that unlike the present People’s National Party (PNP) Government which cut the budget for the Ministry of National Security, he, as minister, would request that the prime minister increase allocation to the security ministry.

“One of the most important points for the Government of the day to recognise is that crime is a problem that has to be dealt with,” Smith said last Thursday at the second of two news luncheons hosted by Jamaica Observer Chairman Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart and Deputy Chairman and CEO Adam Stewart, at the newspaper’s headquarters on Beechwood Avenue in Kingston.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and members of her executive were hosted at the first luncheon. The budget for national security for the fiscal year 2015/16 is $51.8 billion, compared to $52.4 billion for the 2014/15 financial year. “Every aspect of life — including the attraction of investments — rests on having a safe environment.

So the Government must recognise that for the first three years of a new Administration there must be a recognition that national security must have a much larger share of the national budget,” said Smith. He noted that the reduced budget has been impacting the ability of the security forces to deliver.

He cited, for example, that almost half of the police vehicles are down, and that of the 50 per cent in operation, half are 11 years and older.

This lack of mobility, he claimed, has made it difficult for the police to deal effectively with the deadly lottery scam that has been plaguing western Jamaica, leaving a trail of blood in all parishes in the country’s west end.

Security Minister Peter Bunting, at Tuesday’s luncheon, said while homicides were down in several areas of Kingston and St Andrew, Clarendon, and St Catherine — which were known hotspots — the lottery scam was responsible for the increase in murders. He noted, too, that while murders were up, most other serious crimes have declined.

On Thursday, Smith said there is not much accountability in the police force from the rank of inspector up.

This he would want to see improved if the JLP forms the next Government. In addition, he would like the present ratio of three policemen/women to each 1,000 citizens increased to five per 1,000, noting that at any time a high percentage on cops are on vacation, sick leave, and study leave. Smith said there are other areas, like forensics, which could be immediately improved.

But he was most passionate about the working and living conditions of the police, which, he said, are creating a lack of motivation. “Morale [in the police force] is not where it should be,” said the JLP spokesman.

He told the luncheon that a JLP Government would appoint a team of experts to look into the possibility of removing the police from the public sector group, and study the likely impact of them negotiating separately from nurses and teachers so they would not need to accept the same rate as other public sector workers.

Asked if what he was proposing was open-market negotiations, Smith said no. “But right now I do not think they are getting their fair share.” Smith was also passionate about promotions for the police, saying a number of cops believe that promotion has to do with the political party that they support.

“We must establish a transparent merit system so that the police, when they don’t get promoted, can appreciate why,” he said. In 2014, when Jamaica recorded its lowest murder toll in 11 years, the Caribbean country with a population of approximately 2.8 million was listed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as the country with the sixthhighest homicide rate in the world.

Honduras, Venezuela, Belize, El Salvador and Guatemala were the countries with higher murder figures, but despite that, Minister Bunting found the 11-year drop in homicides as something to celebrate.

That celebration, however, has been short-lived as despite the passage of the Anti-Gang Law and other legislation, Jamaica has seen a jump in its murder toll, which the present Administration blames on the lottery scam and domestic violence.

In October this year, the bloodletting caught the attention of Sir David Simmons, chairman of the Tivoli Commission of Enquiry, who described the spiralling murder rate as distressing.

“It is a never-ending cycle and Jamaica has to pull back from this,” Sir David said. The country’s murder toll, up to November 21, was 1,107, a 23 per cent increase over the 900 reported for the corresponding period last year.

However, apart from motor vehicle theft, which jumped from 447 up to November 21 last year to 513 this year, all other major crimes have shown declines up to November 21 this year, compared to the same period last year.

Shootings have dropped from 1,003 to 964; rape from 634 to 509; robberies from 2,057 to 1,700; break-ins from 2,239 to 1,587, and larceny from 400 to 316.