THE Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has strategically deployed its members to major town centres to manage the increase in commercial activity during this year’s Christmas season.

Head of the Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch (PSTEB) Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Gary McKenzie, told a JIS think tank on Thursday that the force has reduced administrative activities and increased its on-the-ground presence to deal with the influx of people doing business that is customary at this time of the year.

“We have heightened volumes in terms of personnel coming out. Our administrative activities are reduced and we have deployments all around within our townships and areas across the country because our number one priority is to ensure that persons are safe,” ACP McKenzie said.

“The JCF personnel, as per our responsibility, have been out there strategically placed to ensure that everyone who is moving about is safe. This includes monitoring and being visible on our highways, within our townships, commercial centres and transportation hubs,” he said.

ACP McKenzie said that the movement of people and traffic is crucial to ensure the safety of persons and the response of the police to incidents.

“We recognise that the movement of traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, has increased in such a manner that traffic has been disturbed, and one of the things that we have had to do is to ensure that our thoroughfares are free of obstruction. We have to ensure that we are visible to respond to any incident and to ensure that our citizens are safe,” he added.

ACP McKenzie said that the JCF’s Quick Response Unit will also be on hand in all major town centres of parishes to provide immediate response to security threats.

“From a public safety perspective, our strategies include traffic management, being visible with beat patrols within commercial centres and transportation hubs. We also have our Quick Response Unit, which are personnel on motorcycles who are conducting prevention surveillance and will respond to any incident once they occur,” he said.

“A simple call to 119 can activate these persons, and they will respond quickly to deal with low to medium threat, and where it escalates, then other deployments will be there,” ACP McKenzie said.