The headline in the Observer of May 5 screamed: "Blood-drenched weekend." This was in reference to the killing of 18 people, including a baby girl, in two days. Since January of this year, 480 people have been murdered in Jamaica. This averages 120 per month, and this in a society that is not enveloped in a civil war or that is not engaged in open warfare with an offending nation.

To say that these statistics are depressing would be the understatement of the century. The bloodletting continues and the present administration, like the former, seems to be nonplussed as to how to deal with it. Mr Golding, in his budget presentation, seemed almost to forget that we are a nation under siege by criminals. His mention of the subject towards the end of his presentation came as an appendage written in haste rather than the careful, thought-out response that the people of Jamaica would expect. To use cricketing terminology, one would have thought that it would have been the brand new bat put to the ball of the first over. Alas, it was a battered and frayed bat that faced a tired bowling, resulting in the match being lost for crime.

I have said consistently in these columns that crime is as it is in Jamaica because succeeding administrations have never treated it as a national crisis. Yet, as I have argued, it can be placed on the same level of a category five hurricane - except in the destruction of lives, gun crimes have resulted in more people being killed than all the hurricanes combined that have hit Jamaica in recent years.

Until we regard crime as a national crisis, we will not give the problem the resources that it desperately needs. We will not treat it with the urgency that it deserves. We will continue to tinker at the edges waiting perhaps for a miraculous moment when it will disappear from before our eyes.
The country does not have the luxury of waiting or for the minister of national security to come up with new or half-baked packages of strategies that will be used to confront the problem this time round. To be frank, one is not even sure that the minister is up to the job. Apart from his recent illness with which one has to empathise, he has been largely missing in action. By and large, he does not seem suited to the rough and tumble and straight talk which his portfolio presupposes. I hope I am not being too harsh on him for I have never met the gentleman. But the crime statistics belie the urgency of his portfolio and we need to see action.

Mr Minister, 18 people were killed last week; Central Kingston had a violent flare-up recently; you have to tread warily in August Town, not knowing from which directions bullets may come at you, and this just a short distance from our main university; Spanish Town and Clarendon continue to be tinder boxes of crime, and Flankers and other volatile hotspots in Montego Bay continue to seethe.

We know that the problems you face are intractable. You have to be dealing with a police force which your commissioner of police has admitted is plagued with criminal elements. The commissioner talks a good talk, but we need to see action. We cannot survive in an environment where it seems predetermined that another 18 lives or more can be snuffed out in another week.

Distrust and suspicion are vectors of the disease that plague the Constabulary. Over the years, especially under the odious Suppression of Crime Act, many of our citizens have grown to be suspicious of the police. Far from being regarded as their guardians, they have seen many of them as terrorists. Inner-city dwellers have grown to hate the police, and that hatred has only opened the way for the gunman or the don man to enlarge his sphere of influence in the community.

We know that fighting crime in Jamaica is not something that can be done by the Ministry of National Security or the security forces alone. We have all agreed that a combination of social intervention policies, especially in the inner-city areas, will be necessary. But who is talking about this and who is leading the charge to make sure that resources are given to the task?

Mr Golding, the greatest task facing your administration is not food security, or even casino gambling. It is about the protection of your people and the preservation of life.
Everything else has to be secondary for those who lose their lives no longer worry about hunger, health care or money jingling in their pockets. Neither do those who are alive now, but who face the grim prospect of being cut down tomorrow.
We may talk all we want about foreign direct investments, but the sad truth is that Jamaica is fast becoming synonymous with crime in the international community. It is of little comfort to the family of the person that gets cut down that we have had an increase of tourists coming to Jamaica since January.
What that family cares about is the security of their members and whether they can live their lives without fear in an environment that has become increasingly insecure. If they are secure in their environment they will continue to struggle to make their lives better. Their struggle is hardly worth it if they have to be fearful or worried that tonight or tomorrow their door may be kicked down and another member may become the next murder statistic. It is the duty of government to help that family to have hope.

stead6655@aol.com

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