The government, in collusion with the police, has hatched a new initiative aimed at halting the rapid escalation of crime in Jamaica. It strangles some of the rights of the citizens hoping that more power in the hands of the police will swing the balance in favor of law and order. To this let me quote Mr. Ben Franklin – ‘Those who would sacrifice freedom for security, deserve neither freedom nor security’.
But even beyond this dire warning, this initiative is doomed to failure, for the eruption of lawlessness, is merely the flares thrown up from a society smoldering in lawlessness, having not seen law and order exercised in the rigid fashion it must be in order to be effective.
When I hear politicians say they have instructed the police to enforce the law I cringe, to think that for police to act they must be instructed! This is fundamentally wrong.
How many times have we seen traffic offences taking place right under the noses of our law officers with no action taken, we look around and see illegal vending, reckless driving, prostitution, illegal settlements, vagrancies, road blocks etc. etc. all of which take place in plain sight and then we are shocked when the number of hard crimes increases.
Have we never heard – give someone an inch and they take a yard?
The solution to Jamaica’s problem is to have a police force that takes itself seriously and that enforces the law evenly, justly and all the time.
Adding more laws and giving the police more power will not slow the growth of this cancer; this disease is organic in nature and feeds on each little offence we allow to go unpunished. Simply, we need zero tolerance and it must begin inside the police force.
