MONTEGO BAY, St James — Bishop Oniel Russell, pastor of Ark of the Covenant Holy Trinity in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, has come out in strong support of state minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Homer Davis’s proposal for the police to invite violence producers to the table as a way to arrest the spiralling murder rate in St James.

According to police statistics, between January 1 and June 6 — 104 people were murdered in St James, which is 26 more homicides when compared with the corresponding period in 2021.

Bishop Russell, who is a former Peace Management Initiative (PMI) violence interrupter, expressed that, as opposed to hardcore policing, a softer approach is needed to reduce crime.

“I support Mr Davis’ call. Get to these young men, try something else. The brute force, turning the country into a police state, it naw go work,” Russell told the Jamaica Observer.

“Peace don’t just come like that. Come into the community, use football teams from different factions, get these young people to sit down and talk to one another, play football, play two domino games. And when you do that you have the watchful eyes of the security forces, but at the same time those (cops) who are there must not come to arrest or trouble anybody but to secure, and it will work.”

He was, however, quick to point out that there is no room to accommodate individuals who are wanted by the police.

“Once a person is wanted for crime and I know that, I don’t involve that person in such talks because then I would be harbouring a fugitive and that is a criminal offence. So I wouldn’t do that. The police is the law and the law must take its course,” the clergyman argued.

John Morris, a former crime officer who was posted at the headquarters of the Area One Police Division, contended that Davis’ suggestion is worth weighing in the balance.

“A view coming from Minister Davis is something that requires analysis. He is a former police officer and to my mind he has been a good representative of the people and therefore it would be wise to look at it. Look at the advantages and disadvantages,” Morris stated.

“The proposal needs analysis before it is tackled. As a former officer I would attempt to analyse it before I support or disagree with it. But it is one that is worthy of analysis.”

There has been support for and against Davis’ comments made in Montego Bay recently.

“I am really agonising over how we intercede with the gangs that are really creating havoc in our space. I have a thought process, commissioner (Assistant Commissioner of Police Clifford Chambers). I think if we can get the combatants, the leaders of these groups, gangs together and put them in a space and say, ‘Listen, tell me now where are you fighting for. Tell me what do you want, what do you need? What can we do to appease you?’” Davis, who is an ex-cop, suggested.

“My take on it is that the police have information on all the violence producers in the parish. Why don’t we start pulling them together, bring them together in a room and say, ‘Listen, you are G6, you are G7 or you are 87. I am serious — what is the problem?’ If you have two children in the home that can’t live together, don’t you pull them together and say ‘Listen, what is the problem?’”

Another former cop, Godfrey Dyer, who was present when Davis made the call, told the Sunday Observer that he doesn’t support the call as it “gives a feeling of surrender”.

“People who are viciously killing one another without even reasons sometimes and we start begging them as the officer who is supposed to suppress it one way or the other and a beg you not to do it, I see it as a weakness but I might be wrong in my views,” Dyer, who is also chairman of the Tourism Enhancement Fund, said.

“Anything that could work we could try it. It is just that I don’t believe in this approach…but if it works it is better for everybody,” argued the former detective corporal, who left the Jamaica Constabulary Force in 1972.

Another former high-ranking police officer who has worked in the Area One Police Division in the past argued that he is opposed to the police or Government agencies engaging with violence producers.

“I don’t believe police or any member of the State should negotiate with criminals. Criminals must know that they are enemies of the State and if you are enemies of the State we cannot be engaging with you. I have, personally, no problem with social workers like PMI, the Ministers Fraternal having a discussion with them. And I would want to find out more who are behind the scene financing the youths. We have to target the financiers. These guys can’t buy guns for 300,000,” stated the ex-cop who spoke to the Sunday Observer on terms of anonymity

The former senior cop also pointed out that for the most part, whenever a meeting is convened in volatile communitues, only women and children are present and the members of the warring factions are elsewhere.

But Bishop Russell, who is adamant that alternative measures should be found to tackle crime, argued that he has personally seen the intervention strategy working successfully while he was a violence interupter at the PMI.

“We cannot just sit like this everyday and have the same thing going. We have to find a solution. The hardcore policing which says you have to run down man and kill man and get rid of man, a no so it work. Because if you have six man inna one gang and you kill the leader, another is going to rise,” he argued.

“I can tell anybody it [intervention] works. I am not asking, is telling me telling. It works. It softens them. It helps them to see. I have had intervention and see hardcore cry because they never know that there was such a difference. Check my record at PMI; I work with these people, I change them. I get them on a different level and they are still on the level until this very day. Until these days some of them don’t even engage back, and I am testimony of them. I can show you them. We need persons to go in communities.”