Enlist more youth to be informers – Delroy Chuck
Published:Monday | May 9, 2022 | 12:05 AMRasbert Turner/Gleaner Writer
Justices of the peace have been urged by Justice Minister Delroy Chuck to be more proactive in swaying at-risk youth from crime and to become informants.
Chuck made the recent charge against the backdrop of troubling statistics showing that 46 per cent of justices of the peace (JPs) in St Catherine could not be accounted for – a concern that extends to several other parishes.
“When I checked the list, there are 1,612 JPs commissioned in the parish. Yet still, in all our efforts, we only managed to contact 877 of them. The other 735 are unaccounted for,” Chuck said at the launch of the St Catherine Justices of the Peace Association at the Seventh-day Adventist Church at 88 Brunswick Avenue in Spanish Town.
“We need to have all members on board, so I call upon you here to get the others.”
The minister also implored JPs to be a beacon of light, especially in the fight against crime. He said that communities should be convinced to give up dons, extortionists, gunmen, and others who sought to challenge law and order.
CRUCIAL
Enlisting the help of the youth, he said, was crucial in that regard.
“We need to deal with the youth on the corner, so as to help them to effect the necessary changes to reap the prosperity that Jamaica requires. I think that there needs to be an informer who will assist the police with information in getting rid of the illegal guns and criminals,” Chuck said. “If we do not get rid of the guns, we will find ourselves becoming victims of criminals who will use them.”
He also thanked those who volunteered their services to become JPs.
St Catherine Custos Icylin Golding told the audience that the association aimed to make the members more accountable.
“Today marks a meaningful chapter of justices of the peace in this parish. We have been registered to the Companies Office of Jamaica since November 2021. Each member is fully recognised once they have become commissioned. We have also established an audit committee to place the membership in a position of strength where their competencies are concerned,’’ Golding said.
The newly installed custos said that JPs are working in tandem with the courts of St Catherine to have members trained as lay magistrates, to help with the dispensing of justice.
“We are lagging behind in St Catherine with few members who are lay magistrates. But we have a cohort now being trained to fill the gap, as while every lay magistrate is a JP, not every JP is a lay magistrate. We are pleased with the progress being made, as they are needed in the courts,’’ Golding said.
JPs are commissioned to do counselling, witnessing DNA sampling and caution statements, the certifying of photographs, and the issuance of recommendations. Lay magistrates preside in petty session court matters as well as some aspects of the juvenile courts, among other things.