Dear Editor,

Ever since Andrew Holness returned as prime minister in 2016 he has failed to stem the crime monster.

We waited almost two years for his first attempts, which included the imposition of states of emergency (SOEs) that absolutely failed; nevertheless, he continues to fight to try to implement a failed solution.

From as far back as 2012 I have been proposing that we needed to place cameras on the 300,000 plus Jamaica Public Service (JPS) poles across Jamaica to assist in monitoring the thoroughfares along which everyone, including criminals, travels.

Let me explain some more.

Cameras on the JPS poles will be equipped with a global positioning system (GPS) and powered by individual mini solar panels. They will be placed high in the pole and they will be networked so that if a camera is disabled by criminals another camera will capture that data.

The most important thing about a system like this is that you will not even have to identify the person in each camera, but by virtue of the network of cameras you will be able to track the movement of the suspect before and after a crime has been committed.

This will give law enforcement the ability to capture the criminal because I would be willing to bet that 90 per cent of the time these criminals use the Jamaican roads and tracks on which JPS poles are ubiquitous.

We will need a data centre where the images of the roads are captured and stored for 30-day periods along with the GPS location of each pole that captured this image.

My estimate is that this project will cost $6 billion to install and $1 billion per year to maintain.

This GPS camera system can be augmented with a drone squad with night vision that will go out both night and day to patrol those hard-to-police areas and gather intelligence.

Prime Minister, consider this, please.

Mark Trought

www.schoolmanagerhub.com