THERE are three types of countries in the world — those that need internment Acts indefinitely, those that don’t need internment acts now, and those who need it now but won’t need it forever.

The type of government you have will determine which one of the three categories your country falls in. If your government is communist, and therefore does not give you the choice of changing it out once you are dissatisfied, then you likely will always need an internment Act to maintain control of your government.

If you are wealthy enough, where your social services enable you to satisfy everybody’s needs and wants within reason, then you likely can survive without an internment Act.

If you face a significant threat from terrorism, gangs or organised crime, it is unlikely that you can function without an internment Act indefinitely.

Norway and Holland are examples of countries that are wealthy and function within the boundaries that social welfare must play in a society. I know you were thinking of the United States of America. Well, you were wrong. They are wealthy, but the imbalance relating to the distribution of wealth created an environment of tunnelled development. People who are stuck in the tunnel where you start with very little will find it challenging to break the chains of economic and mental slavery.

So, yes, they did function without an internment Act for a few years but, as always, when they truly are threatened they do what they need to do. When they felt that American-born people of Japanese heritage were a threat to them, the Remand Act suddenly appeared, and all that constitutional protection disappeared.

When terrorism, in 2001, caused the deaths of 3,000 innocent people in New York City and Washington, DC, in one day, out popped another internment Act. This is called the Homeland Security Act — which has that provision buried as deeply as can be — if you represent a threat to the United States.

I am not knocking them for this. A country must do what is necessary to protect its citizens.

El Salvador, through its never-ending state of emergency, has a functioning internment Act. Some feel that because it is so successful, the citizens of El Salvador may never be free again.

I would argue that with kidnapping and murder occurring at the level that existed prior to the Bukele-led internment plan, they were not free to begin with. Again, I don’t knock them. El Salvador did what it had to do to protect its citizens from gang tyranny.

Jamaica fits into that category that needs an internment Act but may one day be able to function without one. We operate every day without one, but we do so because we accept that at least 999 of us will be murdered in a calendar year.

We avoid using these Acts and actually went as far as to alter the constitution so as to make it virtually impossible to create one. We do this because we wish to remain free. So, we are free, right? Are you sure? Specifically, what are we free to do?

Can you vote for any party you choose in any part of Jamaica where you are enumerated? Can you walk and shop downtown at any time free from fear? Can you say “No” to the don in your community? Can you say “No” to the don when you are doing a construction project, or running a political campaign? Can you drop home your helper without carrying an extra magazine of rounds?

Do you sleep well when your children are out at night? Do you know people who have been murdered? Do you know people who have been raped? Do you think that people in Norway and Holland, on average, know people who have been raped and murdered? I think we can both agree that they don’t. So why do we believe that we should use the same system of waging war against crime?

Taiwan is not communist. In fact, it was formed in an effort to combat communism. It has a murder rate so low it cannot be computed using typical rates per hundred thousand, but it controls its threats with the use of an internment Act. You think you’re free there? Get up one day and express pro-China views.

England is the standing example of a free society — a properly run judicial system and a social welfare system most of the world envy. They didn’t have an internment Act, they didn’t believe in it — it spits in the face of the principles of freedom and the judicial process of innocent until proven guilty.

That is until a few Irishmen started blowing up innocent people in London. At that point the entire concept of freedom first and guilty until proven innocent went right out the door, and they introduced internment in Northern Ireland, which is a territory that functions as part of the United Kingdom.

Despite the fact that I don’t believe they should have been in Ireland to begin with, I still don’t blame them for doing what was necessary to protect innocent people in their country.

I can say without any reservation that a man accused of a crime in Jamaica, and placed before our court, will get the fairest trial compared to any other country in the world. Yet, Jamaicans are the most insecure citizens in the Caribbean, barring Haiti, in relation to their fear of crime.

It’s not because we are paranoid, it’s because the threat is real. We don’t imagine that our criminals are extremely well-armed, we see it on social media every day. We don’t doubt the brutality that the gang members are capable of unleashing, we have lived the body count for almost 50 years. Yet we fear an internment Act?

Because we fear tyranny, we fear we will lose our freedoms. I often ask, “What freedoms?”

In the darkest days of the Suppression of Crime Act, which ran for almost two decades, we enjoyed far more freedom than we enjoy now. We don’t even have the right to live. We can’t go out at night unharmed. The State couldn’t imprison us any worse than the gangs do now.

Our security environment is constantly improving. One day we will fall within the boundaries of being “free”. An internment Act would make us free now, just like it did in El Salvador, but that is only in the event of a crisis.

So, more than 10,000 dead in 10 years isn’t a crisis.

Feedback: drjasonamckay@gmail.com