STAKEHOLDERS regarding the 2020 national consensus on crime, including representatives of Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Leader of the Opposition Mark Golding, met on August 17 to advance their monitoring and oversight.

The Crime Monitoring and Oversight Committee (CMOC), in a release Monday, said that during the well-attended meeting, Senator Peter Bunting of the Opposition People’s National Party reaffirmed his party’s continued commitment to the mission of the CMOC, pointing to his recent statement on the importance of the role it is expected to play in ensuring consensus on key matters. Senator Bunting also emphasised that the CMOC must maintain its independence and objectivity when identifying meaningful key performance index that are crucial to attaining the primary objective of reducing crime, violence and corruption.

According to the release, the chairman provided an update from the meeting held between a CMOC sub-committee and the Minister of National Security Dr Horace Chang, at which the minister committed to working to strengthen the CMOC’s framework with more focused and measurable indicators identified from the Government’s policies and plans. CMOC members, added the release, voiced their appreciation for the ministers’ posture and engaged in a robust discussion regarding an approach to strengthening and deepening the oversight committee’s mission.

The meeting, meanwhile, decided to revisit the original agreement and go beyond the medium- to long-term deliverables by taking a focus on more granular and immediate short-term measures that will provide faster crime reduction, the aim being to identify a new set of priorities for the stakeholders to rally around in a summit to be scheduled.

Over the next several weeks the CMOC said it will further its mission by hosting a series of meetings to expand on the approaches used in the fight against crime and to carry out the mandate of attaining a sustainable reduction in crime, violence and corruption.

The CMOC, stablished in 2020, is an independent body comprising non-partisan stakeholders from the private sector, civil society, academia, along with representatives of the political directorate, with a mandate to agree on programmes which can help to decrease crime.