Law-abiding persons have nothing to fear - Charles Jr.
Published:Wednesday | February 15, 2017 | 12:00 AMChristopher Serju
Persons not involved in criminal activity have nothing to fear from the Government's recent decision to enforce preventative detention as an integral component of its crime-fighting strategy aimed at checking the country's runaway murder rate and spiralling crime spree, according to State Minister for National Security Pearnel Charles Jr.
He argued that criminals being targeted under the additional crime-fighting measures go against the grain of everything that is Jamaican and should be made to feel the heat of the law.
"We have taken some measures over the last week to institute policies and some directives that will make people uncomfortable. Criminals, you are supposed to be uncomfortable!" he declared on Tuesday while delivering the keynote address at the groundbreaking ceremony for a school to be built by Food For The Poor at the Tamarind Farm Adult Correctional Centre in Spanish Town, St. Catherine.
"Those persons who are law- abiding, you will have nothing to fear because we are also cognisant that we have to display the necessary professional behaviour to our Jamaicans. The police have given that commitment, and where you have anybody that's stepping out of line, believe me, every Jamaican now knows what you can do and who you can speak to."
TAKE BACK CONTROL
He urged law-abiding Jamaicans to start speaking up, stepping out and taking back control of the country from the few who are giving it a bad name.
"We are living in perilous times, when you don't know if you are going to hear of one, two, three women killed, children missing, body parts dismembered, officers shot in the head. But there is another story of Jamaica which doesn't get as much exposure because it is not as sexy and not as fascinating. There is more good than evil in our country, and if we are intent on transforming Jamaica and ensuring that we maximise the potential of our people, we must lift up the positives," the state minister stressed.
"We are not the violent, gruesome people that the world makes us out to be. That's a small amount of persons who should not even be defined as Jamaicans because they do not exhibit the values of our country. They do not represent the core principles of our democracy. They don't reflect the mothers and fathers who literally give all of their life existence to ensure their children are better off than them. That is the Jamaica that I know, that is the Jamaica that I want us to lift up."