As we approach the end of another year and I brace to hear the criticisms by the Opposition, the living room crime experts and the dreamers. I also brace for new plans and strategies to be introduced.

This recurring decimal of criticism will focus on the approximately 1,000 gunmen and the over 300 regular citizens who lost their lives through violence in 2021.

The yapping will totally exclude every other crime and the fact that there were reductions in most serious crimes. It will also exclude the fact that the court system is bursting at its seams due to the efforts of the police force and the army.

All that will matter is that cold-blooded killers killed cold-blooded killers before being mowed down by whom? You guessed it, cold-blooded killers.

The misery avoided because of the reduction in rape, the property retained because of the reduction in robberies and break-ins will be ignored. The recovery of almost 700 guns will not even be mentioned. All that will be discussed is the murder tally.

So I figured, let me think of what could be done to change the outcome for 2022. In essence, a short-term murder reduction plan since, after all, that is all that seems to matter.

The first thing is that there are 7,000 positions to fill in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). This is to take the force to 18,000 strong.

The first challenge is that the National Police College cannot graduate 7,000 officers in 2022. Even if they could, it would not happen fast enough to have an impact on the 2022 statistics. So, no expansion through the JCF.

Then maybe it can happen through the Rural Police Force. However, that may be an issue as that is now full-time employment and under the Civil Service Act. The civil service, however, cannot be expanded, based on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement. So maybe we could expand the force using the Special District Constables Act.

However, even that is not going to be up and running early enough to make an impact.

The Gun Court Act could be modified so that we could return to the days of decade-long sentences for gun offences. That would discourage the growing gun culture, especially if they use the Barita or Proven method of marketing – kill them with billboards. However, that would end guilty pleas.

So we would have them on bail for years producing misery at our expense. We would also have to modify the Bail Act to block bail for gun offences and add a few courtrooms and staff to insure they get their trial in six months. All That could not be done early enough in 2022 to have an impact.

If we allowed police officers to work overtime and be paid for it we could get more boots on the ground. This would result in the saturation of the killing zones. However, again Parliament would have to get involved. Once that happens, that is six months right there. It is not going to happen early enough to have an impact.

You may realise that I keep saying the words ‘early enough to have an impact’. This is because once we get to 400 murders by the first third of the year, we are going to reach 1,200 or more by the end. There are academic studies to back that up. It is the reprisal effect.

I mulled over a few other things, but the word ‘temporary’ kept coming up. A temporary solution is the only one we seem to be interested in. But guess what, there is none.

There is nothing the Government can do to significantly impact the murder tally in 2022.

That is, except for one thing. They can implement an islandwide State of Emergency that allows for detention without charge.

This should be followed by a sweep up of known gang members. Notice that I said gang members, not poor people. This effort must be focused on gang members alone.

Temporary facilities will need to be constructed to house them. This must not impact business hours or the entertainment industry. The entire effort must be to allow for detention once they are on the island of Jamaica. This will certainly slow the homicide rate next year, which is the intention of a temporary solution. It is to have an impact in the short-term.

Now, I have mentioned other measures that we could develop next year and we could try to implement them for 2023. Some, such as an expanded special district constabulary and paid overtime, are possible in that period.

However, they will not impact next year’s numbers, as they would reach fruition late in the year, even if we started the process tomorrow.

Year-to-year comparisons are banal at best. Without Mandrake and a fair share of magic, things rarely change for the better in the short run.

Most countries that have experienced important changes have experienced them because they had leaders, sometimes despots, who served for well over a decade. Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew served for 31 years; China’s Mao Tse-tung served for 27 years.

Their progress and change occurred over decades and at an incredible cost to democracy and even human rights.

Great changes do not always have to be achieved through violence and repression, but they always take a long time.

The era of Prime Minister PJ Patterson brought us from a restrictive foreign exchange regime and motor vehicle regulated environment to a liberated foreign exchange market and an open market for the importation of motor vehicles.

It also took us from old roads to highways. But it took 17 years of one political party to make that journey. The message? Change takes time and a thought process that accepts immense adjustments that rock the very foundation of everything you thought you knew.

Did you imagine after two decades of us all buying US dollars in dark corners and hiding them in bibles as we travel that there would come a day when foreign exchange trading would be liberated? And guess what – the world did not end. The country survived and, in fact, flourished.

When we went from new cars only for those with ‘contacts’ to being able to walk onto a lot and see many cars for sale, we could not believe it. No longer did we have to write letters to dealers explaining why we need to spend our hard-earned money to buy their cars. Again, the world did not end. The country survived. Transportation improved and so did self-esteem and standards of living. This all occurred in the Patterson era, but it took time – lots of time.

So, will they try my plan? Can the Opposition and the Government do what is necessary? Can they survive the international backlash? Will the defence bar allow it? Will the human rights groups allow it? These are all questions for which we cannot predict the answers.

One more to consider is this: “Are the 300 innocent, primarily poor lives that are likely to be lost in 2022 important enough to all the above-mentioned to move them to take the necessary steps, or allow them to be taken?

I really don’t think so.

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