I was the guest speaker recently at the annual divisional conference for the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) video identification unit.

Some parts were carried in the press, but I think for my message to be best understood I have to spell it out in totality, rather than limiting it to small parts and pieces.

In this presentation I broke down the reason for Jamaica’s homicide rate and the three points of stimulation that gave it a boost.

I also pointed out the various improvements in the JCF that made the fight to control crime that much easier.

This included the Video Identification Unit, the Divisional Intelligence Unit, the refocusing of the Criminal Investigations Bureau (CIB) as solely an investigative unit, and the Witness Protection Programme.

So let’s begin in 1962, the year of our Independence. We had 63 murders for the year. At that point our population was one 1,683,000.

Our population has grown by almost 63 per cent to approximately 2.8 million. We should therefore have a murder rate in keeping with our population growth of about 99 murders per annum. We have instead, 1,498 murders up to the end of last year.

Well, the civil war of the seventies, of course, reset our murder calendar, but that stimuli ended in 1980 when the Government changed and the Opposition moved on with their life.

However, we didn’t go back to normal, and in 1982 we had about 405 murders for the year.

This was an improvement from the civil war figures of almost 900 in 1980, but not where we would have hoped to be.

The reality was killing had become part of our culture.

We increased at a consistent rate that was being influenced by the deportee crisis and by 1993 we were at 654 murders per annum.

The country introduced Colonel Trevor MacMillan into the Force in that year. By 1996 the murder rate was 925 — 40 per cent increase.

The reason for this surge was that this was the first time that the “demotivating” factor showed how effective it could be at destroying the country. Let me explain.

Trevor MacMillan was a good man, with a strong personality. However, as head of the Government’s Revenue Protection Division that regulated corruption in the Customs Department, he was very critical of the JCF and its membership.

Therefore, when he became the leader of the force the membership was terribly demotivated.

This motivation weakened the Force and strengthened the gangs. That 40 per cent increase was twice the rate of increase that the period 1989-93 had experienced. We never rolled it back either, going forward.

From 2001-04 the murder rate moved from 1,139 in 2001, to 1,471 in 2004. This was a 29 per cent increase, versus a 19 per cent increase for the four-year period before, 1997 to 2001, that is, 953 in 1997 to 1,139 in 2001.

This was the second period where the demotivating effect played out.

Why? This was the period that Jamaicans for Justice was pushing to imprison police officers, and the stimulation of the Braeton Seven shooting gave them ammunition to stay in the news.

As sure as night follows day, the membership of the JCF was intimidated into avoiding confrontation and the gangs felt the weakening of their greatest adversary, the police force.

The homicide number went back to increasing at the usual rate until 2010, when the Tivoli incursion shocked the gangs into a reduction of their killing.

Murders plummeted and Jamaica levelled off at a murder average of about a 1,000 a year.

Then between 2012-2017 the murder rate shot up by 63 per cent to a whopping 1,647 murders in 2017. The stimuli here was Indecom’s obsession with bypassing all other public bodies and charging the police directly, rather like how you would charge a pick pocket or a chain grabber.

Well the police, demotivated as they could be, showed their displeasure by avoiding confrontation and did what most groups under attack do – pull back and evaluate.

Well, since then, motivation has been better. The Commissioner of Police and the high command are motivators and most members know they mean well. The homicide rate has actually decreased in the last five-year period under study, as I pointed out last week.

Are we in danger of the demotivating effect again causing a surge in homicides? Or are we set for another reduction of homicides in 2022-2027?

Well this salary package will either make the Force or kill it. At this point we can become Miami or Haiti (from a criminal justice perspective, not economic).

This salary package must make the membership feel appreciated, that is, at first. It must take them out of the ‘clerk category’, it’s not just money, it’s equality.

No constable must carry home less than $200,000 a month.

Overtime must also be allowed. We know we are sending back salaries to the Government coffers because we can’t fill our recruitment quotas. Allow the officers to fill the void.

Indecom must also take note that they are independent investigators, not activists, and acknowledge that the gangs are enemies to all of us. There are no good baby killers.

They can do this by themselves asking for an adjustment to the Act, or remove foreign influence from their staff.

Whatever they do, they hold the power to determine to some degree how many Jamaicans’ lives will be lost or saved.

This is two ways to avoid a fourth spike in over 40 years.

Learn from Haiti. We have the potential to become them. We just need to do a few more things wrong again.

Feedback: drjasonamckay@gmail.com