Crime-fighting initiative lacking
Published:Wednesday | January 27, 2010 | 12:00 AM
The Editor, Sir:
The Government's initiative to fight crime must have on the top of the list laws enabling fingerprinting of all gang suspects. But we cannot continue with the same philosophy that now drive our efforts at bringing down crime. Doing the same things that produce bad results over the years, and expecting to have good results now, is a waste of time and innocent blood. Hence, increasing police manpower is not the answer.
Crime prevention
It must be clear that we have run in the wrong direction where crime-fighting is concerned. The problem is inherent in the philosophy itself. Instead of crime-fighting we should be focused on crime prevention. Note must be made of a report carried in The Gleaner on January 9, that reported comments from Superintendent of Police for St Mary, Dudley Scott.
He mentioned inspiration from God, first-class neighbourhood watch, excellent public education programme in schools, strong intelligence network and good relationship with residents as key drivers in the low levels of murders in the parish.
Our Eternal Father must be called upon, not only at the prayer breakfast, but as a source of inspiration and then we can set about implementing sensible steps toward crime prevention. It is the work of establishing proper social relations, whether by community-based police or legislative statutes that require full accounting of every single soul in Jamaica, that will result in a drop in the levels of crime.
I am, etc.,
David Allen
Kingston