This week the Jamaica Observer published a Clovis Toon showing the departing minister of national security. To the epithet of the dead in the toon was a posted sign of 1,500 Jamaican deaths. Apart from being absolutely distasteful, this caricature serves as reinforcement of the thinking that the Government of Jamaica, generally, and the minister of national security, specifically, is answerable for the runaway murder rate of the country. By extension, it suggests to the average Jamaican, that whoever is sitting in the chairs of security minister and commissioner of police are jointly responsible for taming our country’s crime monster, and that on their shoulders rests the blame for the country’s unpalatable crime rates.

Beyond that, it is seemingly a kind of “last lick” at the former minister, a graphic interpretation of his failure in fighting crime as he departs to rejoin the private workforce or the Opposition benches. It is unfortunate that there is the belief that any single individual can by him/herself magically reduce crime in Jamaica. This could never be further from the truth.

Crime in Jamaica has multiple causes, and apart from the factor of its decimation of the confidence of Jamaicans in general, the evidence suggests that, as a country, we have failed miserably at not only providing for the security of the people of the country, but also the economic security of the country as a whole.

In the last 45 years alone, Jamaican security authorities have created more than 40 different police squads in an effort to tackle crime, and all we have succeeded in doing is becoming spectators to the yearly increase in the body count. Between 2002 and 2016 a total of 18,407 Jamaicans lost their lives at the hands of other Jamaicans, with the year 2009 representing the apex of our body count, where 1,680 Jamaicans were murdered by other Jamaicans. Interestingly, over the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) four and a half years in Government from 2007 – 2011 a total of 6,414 Jamaicans were murdered. This compares with 4,494 Jamaicans murdered over the People’s National Party’s (PNP) stewardship from 2012 – February 2016 or a body count that is 1,020 or 29.9 per cent less than during the last JLP Administration. This numerical comparison, though, is not to provide a comparison for bragging rights by the PNP, but to provide a base from which the new JLP Administration must challenge itself in its effort to break this murder culture that has permanently placed the nation in its cross hairs, ranking the island as the sixth most murderous country in the world.

Crime and youth unemployment specifically are the two most pressing social problems facing Jamaica at this time; neither of these can be addressed by any overnight fixes. Government must provide interventions within key communities where the degradation of social infrastructures and human development opportunities are enabling at-risk young men and women as candidates for antisocial behaviours. Equally, the Government must provide the kind of policing that is designed to encourage and include the citizens as part of its arsenal in the fight against wcrime. While we have been seeing some southern movement in the country’s murder rate over the past six years, it is foolhardy to expect any meaningful or long-term successes if we continue to fail at providing remediation of the social side of this problem. Youth employment opportunities must be addressed as a matter of urgency and stronger emphasis must be placed at building stronger trust-based relationships with the police and the citizens.

Let me use this column to wish incoming National Security Minister Robert Montague the very best as he begins his innings and hope for all of us that he will not be subject to the lampooning by the Observer‘s cartoonist trailed by fallen Jamaicans at the end of his watch.

Richard Hugh Blackford is a self-taught artist, writer and social commentator. He shares his time between Coral Springs, Florida, and Kingston, Jamaica. www.yardabraawd.com Send comments to the Observer or torichardhblackford@gmail.com.