The State can’t fight fire with fire
Dear Editor,
The year 2022 has been a violent one in which the number of murders have risen above that of 2021. Apart from this, the apprenhension and clear-up rate for murders remain abysmally low and is at crisis level.
The greatest risk to a criminal is when the chance of being apprehended, charged, and found guilty is high. In Jamaica this risk factor remains extremely low, thus giving rise to some brazen and barefaced criminal activities across all the social classes and professions.
In 2022 our major news outlets and social media platforms were replete with stories of politicians, attorneys, security officers, private sector/public personnel alleged to be embroiled in nefarious activities.
Crime is a social problem and must be treated as such. However, this Government does not see it that way, even though the social factors and agents that breed and escalate crime are glaring.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness, National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang, Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck, Minister of Finance Dr Nigel Clarke, and Minister of Local Government and Rural Development Desmond Mckenzie all have several communties in their constituencies that have very high indices of the social factors and agents that cause crime and yet they are doing nothing to eradicate or reduce same.
What they collectively prefer to do is use the state of emergency tool, which has not worked, and will not work, to reduce the symptoms caused by the very social factors and agents they are neglecting. How can you reduce crime in an environment of poor housing, poor water supply and quality, unavailable/unaffordable health care, high unemployment, single parenting, unemployed single mothers with teenaged children, and a high illiteracy rate. Added to these is the lack of morals displayed by leaders at both the community and national levels.
You can’t use the State’s power and apparatus to crush the symptoms while the causitive agents of crime remain on the loose. How must the State become more violent than the society?
Has the Government given up?
Fernandez Smith
Former municipal councillor
fgeesmith@yahoo.com
