If you are a police who is assaulting the houses of gang members, an investigator investigating gang crimes, a scene of crime detective, a police working in a station jail, or an intolerant member of the public who refuses to accept gang domination and gives intelligence to the police, then you are a part of history in the making.

The 35 per cent reduction in homicides in the first quarter of 2025 is the beginning of a new chapter in history that will see the gang domination that this country has been experiencing since 1974 coming to an end. The strategy being carried out by the men and women of the Jamaica Constabulary Force and the Jamaica Defence Force is working. This is the greatest reduction in crime in the pan-American region in a free political environment in decades.

Let me explain the term ‘free political environment’. Countries that are communist have laws that, in effect, can impact the natural freedoms that other non-communist countries can enjoy. This includes the freedom for known criminals to stay at large in environments such as ours that they could not hope to do in a communist country. Well, they also couldn’t hope to do it in countries that have indefinite remand acts either.

So when El Salvador reduces its murders from 100 per 100,000 to five per 100,000 it does so by removing the freedom of a criminal to be at large as part of society, because there is no evidence to convict him. So although other countries have had greater reductions, our reduction has been achieved with minimal removal of public freedoms other than in zones which are part of parochial states of emergency or zones of special operations.

Now, quite frankly, I have no problem with lives being saved by reducing the freedom of criminals, but I recognise that it carries the risk of increasing innocent people losing the protection of the court. This is important as the court is the last bastion of justice. However, after over maybe 1,000 murder scenes visited I am more open to taking those risks if it reduces the amount of wailing I have heard from relatives, particularly mothers.

I was at Cherry Tree Lane after the slaughter, offering what assistance I could as a police. There was a terrible weight of hopelessness in the air that I don’t want to ever feel again. This, coupled with the raw misery and despair I saw in the expressions of friends and families of the victims.

This reduction in homicides has impacted every level of crime that is used as a measurement tool to determine the effectiveness of the police force in controlling crime. Every single major crime shows an incredible reduction. Also, remember that it’s being compared to a year that there was already a reduction from the previous year.

The battle, however, is far from over. As weary that we as policemen and policewomen are, we have three more quarters to go. This is difficult. I know. This is also necessary. We swore an oath. We are now living up to it. As weary as we are, the gangs are even worse off. They are scattered, imprisoned, and quickly realising their time is nigh.

The anti-gang legislation, the new gun Bill, an incredible strategy of surgical, covert operations developed by Police Commissioner Dr Kevin Blake and his team, and the energy of the policemen and policewomen on the ground, in the courtrooms, and in the labs are too great a combination for a bunch of dunce, ‘skill-less’ cowards to stand up to.

The gangs are pathetic, they lose every gun battle with the police because they are untrained, indisciplined and have no true cause other than self-preservation and furtherance of their greed and desires. No evil empire or criminal movement can survive once they have lost the support of the people.

The rejection of the gangs by the leadership of both political parties, the average man on the street, and the parents of the next generation of victims has guaranteed that we have seen the last of this evil scourge that began in 1974 with names like Massop and Feather Mop. It’s just that there is some way to go.

We have to keep at it. We have to drink the coffee and, as my Operation Superintendent Troyville Haughton always says, “We haffi come a work”, which means we have to come to actually work and perform.

If you are a policeman/policewoman at this time, you are probably subject to the best leadership of any police organisation in the pan-American region. In fact, you have been blessed with a succession of great leaders. Feel confident and push on because the gunmen and their gangs are at the edge of the proverbial cliff. We are greater warriors than them. We are up to the task to finish what we started.

If you are a businessman who refuses to pay extortion, the person in the community who will pass information to the police, or a parent who refuses to allow their children to be gun bags for gangs, then you are playing your part in the disintegration of a disease in our country that has become a part of our culture.

Culture must not always be preserved. Slavery was once part of our culture. A mindset that was in keeping with an oligopoly was once part of our culture. We rejected those negative aspects of our history, and with the guidance of great men such as Norman Manley, Sir Alexander Bustamante and others we put it in our rear view mirror and looked on it as history.

I recognise and accept that the leaders of my country have, in the past, made bad decisions. This from appointed leadership, such as Governor Eyre (when we were a colony), to elected leadership of both our political parties.

Governor Eyre participated in costing us the ability to govern ourselves for almost a century. Political leadership in the 70s formed militias that became gangs. I accept it. I forgive them for it, and I agree it is part of our culture. However, I choose to reject it as a part of our identity that we should embrace any further.

All decent people need to play a part in what is happening in 2025. All people — civilians or police — who have played their part in the saving of lives in the first quarter of 2025 should feel pride in this accomplishment.

Let’s keep on the pressure as a country, irrespective of the colour of our politics and drive these killers from our society for good.

Feedback: drjasonamckay@gmail.com