Crawford must show his worth by challenging Holness

He had stated before that he wanted to challenge Prime Minister Andrew Holness in St Andrew West Central, and beat him. Now, Damion Crawford must turn his words into action if he is to salvage any semblance of support that remains out there.

Crawford, the dreadlocked university lecturer and businessman, faces a huge race against time to usher himself into the hall of respect, as one who does not only run from seat to seat in search of comfort and breathing space, but one who can place his mark on the Jamaican political landscape in a tangible way.

We all know that he served one term as Member of Parliament for St Andrew East Rural from 2011 to 2016. He then played his ‘trick’ game by first saying he was not going to contest the 2016 poll, but later changed his mind and was beaten in an internal party vote for the same seat.

During the lead-up to the 2016 election, he was linked to almost every vacant People’s National Party seat, as far as Trelawny Northern, though nothing worked out. But in the by-election of 2019 in Portland Eastern, Crawford, deemed the most popular PNP politician, was upset by Ann-marie Vaz to fill the vacancy created by the death of Dr Lynvale Bloomfield.

Since then, we have heard that he has thrown in the towel as caretaker for Portland Eastern and is in training for others, including the usually PNP-dominated St Catherine South Eastern seat now held by his colleague Colin Fagan.

But enough of that jazz. It is Damion’s time to show his strength and courage. He must take on Holness. By doing so, he would be sparing the PNP the indignity of preventing career loser Patrick Roberts from suffering a fifth-straight whipping by countless lengths by a runaway brown horse called Andrew’s Choice.

Damion would at least attract the middle-class PNP vote in the constituency which continues to ignore any seriousness that Roberts pretends to offer, and, who knows, he may well force Holness to campaign harder in the seat for fear of a Crawford viagra-like surge that could upset his numbers.

It’s time the PNP thinks about this one seriously.

Stay away from murder predictions, prime minister

I heard Prime Minister Andrew Holness say last week that he (or his Administration) intends to reduce murder numbers from 41 per 100,000, to under 16 per 100,000 within the next decade. It’s a dangerous thing to predict decreases in murder, and some of the policymakers and operations personnel just do not get it.

Holness must know that he does not control crime. Unfortunately, those who are involved in organised crime believe that they do, judging from the dastardly acts committed across the island almost daily.

Some years ago, a publicly popular commissioner of police, quite ill-advisedly, said that he would reduce murders by five per cent in the next year. The statistics showed that 365 days later, murders increased by 13 per cent.

So the prime minister has to understand that in order to have the nation dream of something tangible happening he should, as best as possible (because many things cannot be disclosed), come with projects and stay away from making numerical predictions. It doesn’t make sense.

It is a fact that for Jamaica to grow, murders in particular and crime generally must go down in a significant way. I am convinced that the security forces here can control crime to a minimum. The year 2010 confirmed that to me during the time that the infamous Christopher “Dudus” Coke was on the run.

The security forces, although using excessive force at times (which is a must in these times if a nation is to develop), by and large kept things quiet for long periods. The state of emergency, although good in some areas, has not reaped the kind of results that we were all hoping for.

But crime can be reduced. And it doesn’t mean that we have to increase the size of the police force to do it. It calls for a combination of things, among them an improvement in the discipline of members of the Force; greater trust for the police by the public; a major improvement and investment in technology (installing cameras, etc), and the reinforcement of the death penalty.

Open up prison life to the public, Dr Chang

I would like the Minister of National Security, Dr Horace Chang, a man I have a lot of time and respect for, to open up the condition of prisons to the public so that they are fully aware of where they will go if they commit crimes, in particular, heinous ones.

I have been to some prisons in this country, among them Richmond Farm, Tower Street Adult Correctional, St Catherine Adult Correctional, and Tamarind Farm and life there is not pretty. And no, I was not a guest of the State. I visited them while I served as a member of the Courtney Walsh Foundation when we used cricket to try and rehabilitate prisoners.

One of the things I have hoped for is that I never have any reason to be incarcerated. Many taxi and minibus drivers seem hell-bent on wanting me to break that personal pledge. But before I wage my daily wars with the serpents of road misery, I say a silent prayer and I think of the conditions at the prisons that I have visited. I settle for the better option of remaining calm.

So if my friend of over 30 years, Dr Chang, can consent to some sort of public relations set-up to persuade or convince people to stay away from prison, I don’t think that he should show images of the recording studios, because that will only encourage some of our deejays, who themselves contribute to our high crime rate, to chant even more.

People need to be aware that at lunch time at Tower Street for example, sometimes food is served under a big tree in the yard – three big ‘owl’ pots containing white rice, flour dumplin and small strips of meat with gravy longer than Santa’s ungroomed beard.

If you get on well with the man serving you could end up with a third flour dumplin in your plastic plate, and using your hands, as no utensils that can possibly do harm are provided. That can be washed down with syrup. Vegetarians always face a difficult time in prison.

Talking about the condition of the cells will not go down well with those about to start the day with their first meal … and there is much more.

So let them all be aware that prison is not a bed of roses. I really can’t see why so many people resort to certain acts to try and get there, even if it has to do with reckless public passenger drivers on the road.

An unfortunate loss for young West Indies

The loss by the West Indies team to New Zealand at the Under-19 World Cup in South Africa is a painful one.

The team is so talented that it was hard to fathom that they would not have gone all the way into winning the title – a dream blunted by a shock loss to New Zealand in the quarter-final.

The West Indies Under-19s are immensely talented. If properly guided most of the members could be world-beaters within five years. But that hand that will take them to the next stage must be extended.

Among the sweet results of the tournament was the West Indies beating Australia and England. But that one loss to New Zealand has diluted that. Nonetheless, there is hope.