I watched with interest, excitement, and concern as Vice-President of the United States Kamala Harris announced investments in Jamaica, land we love, valued in the millions of US dollars.

Interest because this is the first in my lifetime that a prime minister has visited the White House. Excitement because, who doesn’t want a billion bucks? But concerned because absolutely nothing is just free.

I commend the Government for leveraging the democrat’s identity politics in our favour.

Interestingly Vice-President Harris’s connection to “St Ann parish” is shared with National Hero Marcus Mosiah Garvey, whose name remains stained by what some have called his questionable conviction for mail fraud in 1923. Many Jamaican citizens and indeed government officials have pushed to get his record expunged, yet still, it remains.

To her credit, former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller’s Administration did raise the issue when former US President Barack Obama visited the island a few years ago, but again to no avail.

Whether the issue was raised at this historic billion-dollar meeting is yet to be revealed. But I would like to know.

Another thing that caught my attention was the stress on crime reduction as one of the categories receiving a targeted donation.

Vice-President Harris noted that US$10 million would be given for the purpose of crime reduction, which should be used to target at-risk youth with certain programmes.

My first thought was the need for a generalised strengthening of our crime-fighting machinery as our witness protection programme, crime scene investigation, and strategies geared to preventing recidivism all seem to be in need of upgrades.

Long-term strategies are certainly not to be ignored though, which I suppose has led to at-risk youth being the target of this billion-dollar focus. I applaud the effort.

Long-term root-causes thinking is what will be most effective as we seek to curb this crime monster and set Jamaica on a course of stability and success.

If we are being driven by statistics and the most compelling body of research on the root causes of violent crime, we would certainly fix our eyes on the dilapidated state in which we find the Jamaican family. Fatherlessness, toxic mothering, and poor parenting are the invisible psychological forces that lift our hands to stab and our fingers to pull the triggers to kill our brothers and sisters.

In the words of the late journalist Martin Henry, “Fatherlessness is an albatross around the neck of this nation, weighing us down and choking development.” Indeed, it stifles economic development and strangles our social development. Frankly, and I think Henry would agree, any social programme that doesn’t affect these root causes is dead in the water.

Consider these American statistics put forward by Dr Patrick Fagan of the Heritage Institute: A 10 per cent increase in the percentage of children living in single-parent homes usually leads to a 17 per cent increase in juvenile crime. Even in communities with high levels of crime, 90 per cent of children from safe, stable homes do not become delinquents. On the other hand, in those same high-crime communities, only 10 per cent of children from unsafe, unstable homes are able to avoid crime.

The rebuilding of the family is Jamaica’s most important crime-prevention strategy. Here are some practical things we need to do:

* Allocate more funding to the National Parenting Support Commission so every new parent and every new marital couple is automatically registered and follows up with the commission for marriage and parenting workshops.

* Enforce stricter penalties for fathers and mothers who abandon their children, with automatic child support payments as seen in the United States.

* Offer paternity leave only for husbands who live with their marital partner and children.

* Optimise the foster care and adoption systems.

* Begin teaching parenting skills at grade 1. Focus on the value of the family, marriage, and parenting to the individual and the society, especially as it relates to crime reduction.

* Develop a government counselling service to be made available in health centres across the country aimed at marital preservation, parental empowerment, and conflict resolution.

Jamaica is nowhere near being the place to raise families. But we can still set the course to get there. This must become our number one priority.

Dr Daniel Thomas is a medical doctor and the president of the Love March Movement, a youth non-governmental organisation for sexual purity and the family in Jamaica. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or danielthomaschristian@yahoo.com.