THE EDITOR, Madam:
I AM responding to an article, dated August 30, written by one of your esteemed columnists, Mr. Peter Espeut. In his piece, Mr. Espeut gives the impression that it is the low educational attainment of the policemen and women of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) which makes the fight against crime so seemingly ineffective. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Today's criminals are not necessarily better educated than the men and women of the JCF. I suspect that the educational level of the present day police force is not as low as Mr. Espeut claims. Indeed, there are many members of the JCF who have their Bachelor's and other advanced degrees. While I agree that there are many educated criminals, they are for the most part white-collar criminals. White-collar criminals, though they harm the country economically and strike at the moral fibre and soul of the nation, are not the perpetrators that are causing or have caused the mass panic, mayhem and hysteria that is sweeping the country.
The simple fact is that Jamaican people are afraid and indeed terrified of the common gunmen; they are not terrified of the white-collar criminals, who presumably are the smartest criminals academically. Therefore, common sense dictates that the police force employs different strategies and operational tactics to reduce the challenges posed by these two types of criminals.
Indeed, it is not necessary for the front-line policemen and women, who are doing the actual fighting against the gunmen, to possess degrees; however, this admittedly might not hold true in the fight against sophisticated white-collar criminals. Criminal gunmen do not use computers and pens to kill, to engage in insider-trading, stock manipulation et cetera. They use guns! The guns are the tools of their 'trade'. Therefore at the operational level, the police need fire-power to confront these criminals.
Mr. Espeut is being misleading when he asserts that one does not need more fire-power to fight crime. Superior fire-power is the only thing that these cold-hearted criminals respect and fear since most of them will not allow themselves to be apprehended.
While the police force needs very capable detective investigators to detect crime and to expose criminals, one still needs superior fire-power to complement that brain-power, particularly against the types of cold-blooded killers that the police have to confront on a day-to-day basis.
In the long run, the country needs stronger family values; greater parental involvement in the lives of their children; longer prison sentences for hardened criminals; stronger societal norms; greater respect for human rights from both the civilians and agents of the state in order to reduce, and indeed to eradicate crime.
While I support the argument that policemen should meet a defined minimum educational level before they are recruited into the force, requiring policemen to possess a college education will not solve or even ameliorate the crime problem since the law enforcement community is just one side of the social equation.
Lack of effective law enforcement is not the reason that there is a high level of crime and a sub-culture of criminality in Jamaica. The nation has to get to the youths before they begin to drift into criminality. By the time these youths make their first contact with the criminal justice system, it is usually too late to save them.
I am etc.,
LASCELLES E. ISON
E-mail: LElson4309@aol.com
