KINGSTON, Jamaica — The United Independents’ Congress of Jamaica (UIC), says the State of Emergency (SOE) implemented by the government on Sunday can only reduce crime for a very short period.

UIC president Joseph Patterson said the government is attempting to use an “iron fist” to fight crime, much like it is doing with the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is always a spike in crime after the removal of the SOE, which also tramples on the rights of citizens.

“The government has attempted to use this same method to manage the COVID-19 pandemic with not a single thought on how to identify the root causes and finding solutions to them while respecting our sovereignty,” Patterson said.

“There is no need to suspend the natural-born fundamental rights and freedoms of the Jamaican people to put an end to the epidemic of crime in Jamaica or to the current pandemic.”

He said the UIC recognises that Jamaica has been facing the scourge of a crime epidemic for decades. He said successive governments have been unable or unwilling to do what is legally and morally necessary to free the country from the grip of criminal gangs.

“The use of SOE to fight crime in Jamaica is using a very blunt instrument to solve a specific problem. Holness is using what is called the iron fist method. The problem is SOEs cause collateral damage: rights violations (pepper spray, brutality, detentions of the innocent),” he said.

The UIC presented what it calls an alternative solution to the ineffective states of emergency that has and is being used to combat crime in Jamaica.

Some of these alternatives include turning over the management and control of schools to all school boards and administrators; moving all civil court cases online and allowing weekend cases to take place and focusing the judiciary on in-person trials of violent or major crimes; cutting gang funding from the drugs-for-guns trade; cutting gang funding from extortion and scamming and establishing a Gang Strike Force (GSF) — to choke off the gang manpower supply.

David Dunkley