Kingston Creative partners with Crime Stop to heal scarred neighbourhoods
Published:Thursday | December 1, 2022 | 12:05 AMAsha Wilks/Gleaner Writer
Crime Stop Jamaica has partnered with Kingston Creative in its ‘Paint the City’ project in an effort to reduce violence in communities with high incidences of crime.
Initially launched in 2018, the Paint the City initiative was to create street art murals throughout downtown Kingston, with the main goal of transforming the area into a vibrant art district.
To date, more than 80 murals have been painted by Kingston Creative in the central areas of Kingston, including Water Lane, Church Street, Tower Street, Duke Street and East Street, along with the communities of Tivoli Gardens, Rae Town, Trench Town, and Southside.
Some of these murals feature augmented reality functionalities that narrate the history of these notable spaces.
Andrea Dempster-Chung, executive director of Kingston Creative, told The Gleaner that after the organisation worked with Crime Stop, the Hannah Town community development committee (CDC) and Digicel Foundation in 2021 to create a 64 foot mural in Hannah Town by artist Bonito ‘Dondada’ Thompson, “the collaboration was so well received in the community that the decision was then taken for Crime Stop and Kingston Creative to work together on a series of future murals,” she said.
Crime Stop Jamaica was awarded grant funding from the Canada Fund of Local Initiatives to execute a project with the central theme, ‘Promoting Peace: Crime Reduction, Prevention & Conflict Resolution’. Community engagements are among the project activities.
Cherise Bruce-Douglas, manager of Crime Stop Jamaica, says that based on previous collaborative efforts executed with Kingston Creative, it was only fitting and “natural” to further their engagement with the organisation. Both women agreed that with Kingston Creative being the leading organisation in the field of art, it was determined that using the interpretative medium of art and the influence of Jamaican culture was the ideal method “to portray a message of peace”.
MAINTAIN PEACE AND HARMONY
Muralists are invited to participate in painting the downtown communities of Rae Town, Dunkirk and Rose Gardens to promote peace, crime prevention and conflict resolution. Those interested in the Crime Stop mural project may submit their application before the deadline on December 10 at: https://kingstoncreative.org/paint-the-city-open-call/.
Dempster-Chung says the group hopes to begin work as soon as possible, once designs have been selected. “The goal is to not just to beautify the space for the season, but to put in each community a daily, visual reminder that the responsibility is on each of us to stand against crime and to maintain peace and harmony in our communities,” she said.
Public art, she continued, is a strategy that has been employed all over the world, as it enhances not just the physical environment, but also people’s social and emotional well-being and their civic involvement. Bruce-Douglas explained that from her own experiences, having engaged with the community of Hannah Town last December, art proved to be a medium which united people.
“For years, entities have used the same methods to effect positive change that have waxed and waned,” she bemoaned, adding that Kingston Creative had since presented a new way tapping into the creative space to promote change. “Crime Stop is on board with this new approach, and have seen where it garnered the impact we hoped for,” she added.
In partnership with the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, Crime Stop Jamaica was first established on September 5, 1989. As of October 2022, their 311 hotlines have received 31, 023 tips leading to 2, 852 arrests, the seizure of over $870million in narcotics, and the recovery of over $281million in property. A total of 1,009 tips were recorded between January and October of this year, a 71 per cent increase from the 589 tips received during the same period in 2021. Over $7.3million has been paid in rewards as of October, of which $6.5million worth were related to illegal firearm seizures and/or associated arrests. Crime Stop currently has a success rate of one in four. Since conception, a total of $62.4million has been paid out in rewards.