State of desperation and dystopia

THE EDITOR, Sir:

The State of emergency in Jamaica is the embryonic stage of a society that places a high premium on expediency with myopic evaluation criteria. Murder has gone down about 20 per cent compared to last year, but still almost 1 000 Jamaicans were murdered, so I do not consider it a success. Millions of dollars are being spent and Jamaican security forces have been working excess hours without appropriate compen-sation. Their family life has surely been impacted negatively because they are tired and frustrated.

The emergency is that many Jamaicans are unemployed, many Jamaican children are going to bed hungry, many Jamaican children cannot afford to go to school every day, and many Jamaicans die because they cannot afford the required healthcare. Please tackle those problems with alacrity and it will bring a balanced response to Jamaica's social ills.

This palliative approach might work in the short term, but it will eventually produce smarter and more barbaric criminals. The tougher the condition, the tougher the people. The voter turnout suggests that Jamaica's political leaders are not inspiring Jamaicans.

It takes extreme intelligence to solve Jamaica's crime problem - draconian measures only create shock and awe, but the battle will not be won.

Brian E. Plummer