Gov’t to call out National Reserves to boost security
Published:Friday | November 27, 2020 | 1:07 PM
Prime Minister Andrew Holness says the National Reserves of the Jamaica Defence Force will be deployed across the country as of December 1, to give support to the police during the Christmas season.
“In our discussions yesterday [Thursday] at the National Security Council meeting, we have decided that in order to support the Jamaica Constabulary Force in their efforts, that we will make a full call out of the National Reserves to augment the enforce presence that we have in communities all across Jamaica,” Holness said while speaking at the groundbreaking for a new police station in Mount Salem, St James this morning.
He said that the Government will not give any room for criminality to take root as the year comes to an end.
“We have decided that we will be conducting even more dynamic operations right across Jamaica and we are not only going to be focusing on prevention of murders and gang warfare, we are going to ensure that the spaces in which commercial activities take place, that those spaces are also safe,” said Holness to much applause from the audience which included several residents from the Mount Salem community.
Residents have been living under a Zone of Special Operations (ZOSO) since 2017.
“For the next month [December], we are going to make every effort to increase our dynamic operations and give greater profile to what we have been doing,” he said.
According to Holness, while there is a general decline in homicides as a result of the states of emergency that were implemented in several areas across the country, some elements of criminality are trying to resurface.
“It would appear that there is an emerging trend that once the criminals see that we are making progress, there is always a deliberate attempt to increase our numbers,” Holness said.
“We saw it the year before and we are seeing the same trend again this year.”
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