I had a discussion recently with one of those critics who don’t live in Jamaica, nor have they done so for decades.

He described Jamaica as a ‘failed State’. I found this description absolutely incorrect but, to my surprise, a common belief of many of the myopic among our people both home and abroad.

So I think it’s time we take a look at our country and what we have achieved since Independence. Let’s begin with education.

In our island you can attend primary school from as early as kindergarten free of cost. This will continue throughout and then you enter high school. This also is free.

Don’t gasp, that back-to-school bill is a book bill. No public school can send you home for any unpaid school voucher, that’s the law.

At the end of high school you may go on to tertiary level education and it is subsidised at the Government-aided institutions up to two-thirds of the cost.

Even the non-sponsored amount is ‘chicken feed’ compared to what other countries charge for a university education.

In my opinion, most overseas educational institutions are not at the level of our sponsored institutions.

Now, ‘chicken feed’ is relative but if the cost is out of reach there is a government-controlled institution that will lend you the fee and guess what, by policy it is mandated to lend to the poorest of the applicants. So no flush toilets allowed.

This institution is the Students’ Loan Bureau.

Let us assume that your parents failed you and didn’t ensure that they sent you to school regularly enough for the school system to impact you, or maybe life failed them and they could do no better. Well, there is a post-high school government institution called HEART/NSTA Trust that will train you up to level four in a variety of skills free of cost.

Now let’s talk health.

If you are poor, your birth did not cost your parents anything if they delivered you at one of our public institutions.

Then, if you feel ill at any point and require medical care, there are public clinics in most communities across the length and breadth of Jamaica. Free of cost.

Let’s assume you have an accident or fall seriously ill and require hospitalisation, there are government-funded hospitals that will treat you free of cost.

Will the wait be long? Yes, but at the end of it you will be treated by medical personnel that the world is seeking to employ and, by extension, take away from Jamaica.

The medication that you will require is usually free at the hospitals or clinics, or at a significantly reduced cost.

There is, in addition, the National Health Fund that will reduce the cost of your medication once you fit the age and prescribed illness.

This country is not a failed State. It has never been, irrespective of the party that governed us.

So why then have we failed in the area of crime control?

Well, it began with Britain’s colonial policies and their inability to provide for the educational and housing needs of the descendants of slavery.

At Independence they handed over a country in which squatting was already a culture and illiteracy common.

Despite the incredible contribution of the National Housing Trust (NHT) to alleviate the housing crisis, Jamaica’s informal settlements number in population in the hundreds of thousands.

This creates a perfect environment of “want” to lay the foundation for small space influencers to create criminals on a daily basis.

That is one factor.

The second factor is that we had a civil war in the 70s where we taught our poor how to kill and the empowerment that comes with firearms.

This is not isolated to Jamaica. South Africa, Northern Ireland and Vietnam are just a few I could name that have used its citizenry to wage war in civil conflicts.

They, unlike us, recognised this fact in a real and formal manner and have taken steps that were necessary to confront and reset.

We, on the other hand, don’t admit or even formally record it ever happened.

We have made several errors since that have fed the crime rate that include the introduction of Colonel McMillan as commissioner of police, the removal of the Suppression of Crime Act and a badly constructed Indecom Act.

What we have never done is recognised that it is a crisis that needs to be treated as such.

So how could we fix this?

Well, despite the aforementioned success of the NHT in playing its part in improved homeownership, it has failed to provide for that group that will never be able to buy their own home. That group being not the poor, but the pauper.

This group exists among us and they are who we call squatters. Their solution lies in social housing.

It is only when we deal with the issue of informal settlements that we begin the process of dealing with our crime and gang problem.

On the same note, it is only when we deal with the lack of acceptance that our crime rate is not a ‘crime’ problem but a gang problem, that the solution can be found.

Once we cross that bridge then we can justify and live with the decisions that we need to take.

Policing terrorists requires a totally different legal approach to fighting crime.

Ask the Americans, they introduced the Homeland Security Act to combat it.

Terrorists, unbridled gang growth and armed political rebels may seem different in their intent, but are very similar in their impact.

They are also similar in their ability, or lack thereof, to be policed by regular means.

The hurdles of informal settlements and a failure to accept the inability of traditional crime control measures will forever result in us fitting the description of a ‘country in a crime crisis’, irrespective of whether we reduce or increase our homicide rate one way or the other.

The route to a homicide rate that falls within pan-American norms can be achieved, but this will be at a cost of a significantly increased prison population.

It will also require a strong government that is not dictated to by foreign interest groups.

It can be fixed, but if it is not we cannot allow ourselves to be labelled as a failed State.

Your taxes have and continue to work for you.

Those schools didn’t build themselves. The teachers, police force, fire department, civil service, doctors and penal service are paid every month without private sector assistance.

Don’t take what we are for granted. We are far from a failed state. Ask those old enough to remind us what it was like before Independence.