THE EDITOR, Sir:
EVERYWHERE YOU turn in Jamaica, people are crying out for justice. They complain through civic organisations, plead on radio talk shows, demonstrate for television cameras and vent their increasing anger by senselessly attacking one another.
There is mounting evidence that growing numbers are losing faith in the police as a protective force. Losing hope that the courts will provide swift and certain judgment; and firm in the belief that the prisons serve only to harden criminals and to send them back to society more dangerous and more defiant.
Justice in Jamaica is sick; and if ever there was need to overhaul the entire system, the time is now. We are overwhelmed by criminal elements, from murderers terrorising urban areas to praedial thieves robbing people of the sweat of their brows. We hesitate to walk the streets; we quiver behind bars in our houses; we are afraid to testify in court; and we dare not talk back to those who impose mental and physical stress upon us.. Yet the authorities seem content with a programme of nostrums, responding to each crisis with a quick probe that addresses a single symptom at a time.
This cannot go on without producing consequences of the most devastating nature; and civil society must demand and get an intensive and comprehensive examination of the inter-locking elements of the justice system. What are we doing about the conditions that continuously produce tens of thousands of discontented, angry and frustrated young men and women; some of whom are in the police force? Nothing much!
This is a sorry situation in which we cannot hold ourselves blameless. It is not enough simply to ask policemen to put their lives on the line in a cruel and uncompromising war against criminals to whom life is cheap and expendable. We certainly do not like how some policemen do the bloody task to which we have assigned them. But who else is going out there to face the bullies and the bullets? What alternative have we as a people provided for our own protection? The answer is blowing in the whirlwind.
I am etc.,
KEN JONES
E-mail: alllerdyce@hotmail.com
22 Allerdyce Drive
Kingston 8
Via Go-Jamaica
