Dear Editor,

The two-year-old Crime Consensus Monitoring and Oversight Committee (CMOC) agreements are to be updated to incorporate a wider cross section of stakeholders. This was initiated following a series of meetings in recent months with the Minister of National Security Dr Horace Chang.

The proposed changes to the 2020 consensus received strong verbal support from representatives of private sector stakeholders, the Jamaica Council of Churches, and the Jamaica Umbrella Group of Churches as well as some of the signatory non-governmental organisations.

Opposition spokesman on national security Senator Peter Bunting affirmed that the Opposition participated in a preliminary review of the proposed updates to the consensus and was comfortable with most of the items identified in the updated document. He also reiterated the People’s National Party’s ongoing commitment to the principles of the consensus.

Since the initial meetings with the minister of national security, CMOC has had engagements with all its signatory stakeholders and has received overwhelming support from those who have reviewed the more extensive proposed updates for updating the consensus.

One of the drivers of the changes was that the document now included a focus on short-term measures for the reduction of violent crime instead of only medium- to long-term initiatives that would deliver a sustainable reduction in crime, violence, and corruption. Therefore, the updated document is expected to include a focus on programmes to expedite reduction in violent crimes.

In addition, the updated consensus is to include brought-forward outstanding and unachieved items from the initial agreement, such as the fact that, to date, 11 of the 31 targets that were to have been completed by the end of December 2022 have been satisfactorily achieved. Four have had their timelines reset; 10 timelines have been missed without satisfactory justification; four are lagging and likely to miss the agreed timelines; while two are on track to meet their deadlines.

The updated consensus is expected to increase focus on monitoring the impact or outcome-related metrics, such as reporting on improved efficiencies in the Jamaica Constabulary Force as a result of the investments in the transformation of that organisation.

Another transition will be to move from the milestone-related metrics used for several of the consensus deliverables to a more performance-oriented metric.

Crime Consensus Monitoring and Oversight Committee