Is there really a political will to fight crime ?

There have been many reports, many task force, many studies but yet Jamaica does not seem able to put a dent in murders and other criminal activities in Jamaica ?

Why is it that murders always rise during the rule of the PNP ?

In responding to the first question, the clear answer, is there is no political will to fight crime in Jamaica. In fact I find the PNP is always unwilling to pay the political price to fight crime, because they so want to remain in power.

Jamaicans do not like to subscribe to the rule of law in Jamaica and so will not lend much support to any political party who takes a hard line at criminality in the country. The PNP will always bawl when in opposition about how the government is uncaring, callous and have no interest in the poor and will speak about it often enough that the poor will actually believe.

The fact is, criminality in Jamaica pays, people eat a food from criminal conduct, so were you to move in and put a major dent on crime, then those who are “suffering” as a result, will want to see the back of you in a hurry and install the others who are not so hard on criminality.

Crime has it breeding place in the garrisons right across Jamaica. We have been told that the PNP controls 21 of the identified 26 garrisons right across Jamaica. Instructively these are the areas where the support for the party exceeds 90% and these garrisons themselves form a part of the 61 constituencies  that are voted for in each election.

Were the PNP to get serious and create shock and awe in these communities to root out criminal conduct, its highly likely that the majority of these people would be turned off from the PNP and may either not vote or if upset enough, vote against the party.

Now as a politician, if you have close to 21  safe seats and need only 33 to win, it means you will need just 12 more on top of what you already have “locked”. Would you therefore run the risk of losing all 21 simply to go after the cradle of criminality and thus ruin your chances of being re-elected ?

Now to question 2, why does murder always rise under the PNP. The answer to this is can be laid at the feet of the economy. The PNP over its 22 years in power have failed to generate any significant levels of growth in the country and in fact has been responsibility for the most job losses in this country since independence.

Their policies in the 1990’s is still affecting the country even to today and despite the fact that they have  all but dumped the socialist ideology, they do not know how to operate in a market driven economy.

The PNP continued failure to generate growth has spurned criminal behaviour in the country and the party’s philosophy of winning at all cost has not allowed them to put in place those policies that can have a marked impact of reducing crime.

The PNP has yet to come up with any far reach crime fighting strategy, they are always reacting to a spike and this is not the way to address the complex issue of crime. The problem with us Jamaicans however is our super short-term memory, which rarely extends beyond 9 days and the PNP knows this all too well.

Crime in Jamaica will only be solved when the  winning-nest party in the country decides that it is time to solve this issue and pays less attention to do what is required to win an election. I always thought it would be when the people had enough, but sadly I have found this not to be true, for the simple fact is criminality thrives in many of these communities and this is the only way people get to “eat a food”.  As long as they and there families are not victims then its all good and their explanation why others die is because ” dem chat too much or dem diss the program”.

The PNP lacks the political will do what is right by the country, if doing so is likely to result in an election loss.

Can we allow the country to be operated in this manner ?

Dismantle all garrisons and watch crime plummet to the lowest level in our history. Is the PNP willing to pay the political price to do so?