KINGSTON, Jamaica — Member of Parliament (MP) for St Andrew South Western, Dr Angela Brown Burke has expressed mixed feelings regarding the recently declared state of emergency in her constituency.

A SOE was declared across the St Andrew South Police Division and sections of St Andrew Central on Thursday following a significant increase in violent criminal activities in Waltham Park Road, Maxfield Avenue, and Waterhouse.

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READ: SOE declared in St Andrew South; sections of St Andrew Central police divisions

In an interview with Observer Online shortly after, Dr Brown Burke shared that while she does not believe in using SOEs as a crime fighting tool, she has to trust the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) to do their job.

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“I genuinely believe that state of emergency is not an ideal crime fighting tool and that it is only a temporary measure and it is not a lasting solution and so my preference would not be to have that but I’m not a crime fighter and I have to depend on the JCF and those who are in crime fighting to fight the crime that they are facing,” she said.

“I can only hope that the temporary release of powers that we will have will be enough for us to be able to move on to a more lasting solution,” Dr Brown Burke continued.

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The MP anticipates that different communities will react differently to the SOE.

“The citizens from parts of Whitfield Town Division, parts of Payneland, parts of Cockburn Pen will welcome it, especially with the kind of murders that they have seen and how frequently that has been and how many that they have seen. They really want to feel like something is happening and they want to see a difference. And so I know that they will sleep easier tonight knowing that,” Dr Brown Burke said.

“I know though that persons from the Greenwich Town Division and in particular the Greenwich Town community are going to be asking some questions. It was just a couple weeks ago that we met with the commanding officer from St Andrew South with residents, in particular small business owners, asking for an easing up of the opening hours and that based on the discussion they would have thought that since in their particular area they have not had any of those murders or crimes being committed, I’m sure they would have been looking for some easing up instead of a locking down.

“At the end of the day what we do want are individuals feeling safer, to be in their homes, to come home from school, from work, to walk the streets and in more places than not I believe that they will feel safe out of this,” she added.

“Again my only hope is that this is not, as it has been so often, just a band-aid that is used. But having cleaned the wound, having placed the band-aid, we need to be thinking at the same time about more permanent fixes to the real deep social problems that we have.”