It’s almost four years since I wrote to Commissioner of Police Major General Antony Anderson requesting basic data from his office. A collage, purportedly made up of pictures of 24 girls of varying ages killed within a given time frame, was making the rounds online following the killing of the latest two. I sent it to the commissioner’s office, September 3, 2018, asking that each subject be identified by name and age, as well as an update on the cases — which ones had been solved and how.

Finally, I asked about the established response time for the police once a call for help has been received, and if there was a difference between urban and rural areas. I was curious because I don’t see how the police can fight crime effectively if even these basic benchmarks are missing. I thought there would be aspirational times at least, and this is not specialist thinking. It’s mostly common sense.

I followed up by phone and e-mail multiple times during September and October without getting as much as an automatic response. I kept the notes I made each time I called the office. Some of the responses may even seem comical. I dutifully followed their instructions as they bounced me from one officer to the next.

They did not seem to know that I knew that they had no intention of responding to the questions, which I soon concluded they could not.

I am certain, too, that they did not recognise that every behaviour was evidentiary, because I was collecting data on how the office of the commissioner functions at a casual level, and using that as a bellwether for what the country could expect from the then newly installed commissioner.

It’s important because the first task of transformational leaders, typically, is setting the tone for how their stakeholders ought to be treated at the level of basic customer service.

At the data collection level, I wanted to know how effectively the police gathered and stored information on victims of violent crime, which is 100 per cent necessary if they are actively working the cases to apprehend perpetrators and deliver justice on behalf of the victims and the entire society that is had been victimised every time a crime is committed.

I wanted to know what happened after the three days of lamentation, after the police post their yellow crime scene tape, and after publicity-seeking politicians go back to cutting ribbons, posing beside black drums or potholes that have been patched after 10 years of citizens’ protests.

I wanted to know, and still do, the value that the State places on the lives of its children; if they matter, or if they are just disposable like the trash that the Government cannot seem to collect with any efficiency.

I got a response under the signature of Dahlia Garrick, officer in charge, Corporate Communications Unit, November 3, 3018. It read as follows:

“I am in receipt of your request which was forwarded to the JCF’s [Jamaica Constabulary Force] Statistics Department, Criminal Investigation Branch, and the Missing Person Call Centre, respectively. As soon as it is available same will be forwarded to you forthwith.”

I am still waiting.

I eventually filed an access to information request in December 2018 to test the system some more; trying to separate the spin from the reality and see what works and what does not.

I am waiting on that too.

I eventually gave up and quelled the desire to write anything — seized by the futility of it all. After all, what’s a few words on a page when the superstructure is dysfunctional and an entire nation is trapped in a vicious cycle of violence and leaders whose overriding interest is to entrench and reproduce themselves?

No, no, no. It’s not lost on me that I live in the United States, where life seems to get more ridiculous by the day in too many ways. The reality, though, is that Jamaica can fit in the US almost 1,000 times. The impact there will always be more deeply felt. Additionally, at the state and county levels in the US, governance is highly effective.

More than any of that, Jamaica is and will always be home for many of us. This is why it was so deflating to realise that the highly decorated commissioner would be another chair-warmer, incapable of making a dent in the problem of violent crimes because if he and his team lacked the know-how to successfully handle a customer service request it is an indication that they do not have the capacity to conceptualise, design and implement the strategies and tactics needed to address the problem at the level that it needs.

Since then, violent crime rates are up. This newspaper, in its June 22, 2022 editorial, chronicled the number of children killed since 2017, including the slaughter of 31-year-old Kemisha Wright and her four children. It broke my heart. And I write today to express my sorrow to her mother and every law-abiding citizen.

I mourn our disregard for life, the hapless political leadership confusing propaganda with reality, and a society, overall, growing dangerously numb to it all.

Grace Virtue, PhD, is a Jamaican living in Maryland, United States.