THE EDITOR, Madam:
THE RESPONSE of the PSOJ and in particular its executive director Charles Ross and president Peter Moses to the suggestion made by the Public Defender Howard Hamilton Q.C., for the private sector to fund an inner-city development programme to the cost of $2 billion was appalling. The response no doubt gives credence to Paul Burke's assertion that the PSOJ call for the resignation of some top government officials in the wake of an increasing crime rate is hypocritical.
There is no doubt that a significant proportion of criminal activity above the normal rate of crime that exists in Jamaica has its genesis in the socio-economic condition under which people in the depressed areas of our cities live. The failure or reluctance to acknowledge the root causes of crime and poverty in Jamaica has lead scholars and policy-makers in the past to either unwittingly or unscrupulously trivialise the problem as the unfortunate consequence of two Jamaicas.
However, more indepth analyses have shown that crime and poverty are not just the results of the difference between the haves and have-nots, but there is a systematic if not functional relationship between social injustice and prosperity. There is evidence of a strong correlation between social and economic deprivation on the one hand, which gives rise to crime and other antisocial behaviour, and the accumulation of wealth and privileges on the other. It is within this context that Mr. Hamilton's suggestion is appropriate and relevant.
For Mr. Moses to suggest that the government should create another FINSAC to deal with the problems of inner-city communities is not only audacious but repugnant. No matter what criticism one may level against the Patterson administration one cannot say that the private sector has not gotten its fair share of opportunities. This sentiment was epitomised in Mr. Ronald Thwaites' critique of his government as one that is responsible for the most massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, ever since the abolition of slavery.
In addition, the government which has spent over US$2billion to bail out the financial sector, would have been wholly short of funds to effect a similar undertaking with respect to the inner cities. The failure of the private sector to respond to the problems of the inner cities in a way that is not as condescending and superficial as is reflected in the charitable activities of groups like the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC), suggests that these people do not identify with the majority of Jamaican people beyond the dimensions which are conducive to the accumulation of immediate wealth and super-profits.
The PSOJ's head in his rejection of Mr. Hamilton's suggestion does not see the problem of the inner-city communities as part of their problem; it would appear as if their social parameters of interaction are defined by the sphere of acquisition of profit.
I am etc.,
SHERROD LEE
E-mail: flexjones@hotmail.com
Kingston
Via Go-Jamaica
