WERE THE government, the Private Sector and Civil Society to get together and develop a comprehensive plan for reducing the unacceptable high level of crime in the country, "every donor would support it". This is the word from the Director of USAID in Jamaica, Mossina Jordan, to the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce.
The police have in place a corporate strategy and have recently launched a services charter. The Ministry of National Security and Justice has accumulated several policy documents on crime reduction, including the well-known 1993 report of the Wolfe Task Force on Crime.
In recent times, several civic groups whose brief is Security and Justice have emerged. Unfortunately their stances in the public eyes have been seen as starkly pro or anti-police. In the wake of the Braeton killings, two such groups simultaneously demonstrated "against" and "for" the police at the corner of Hope Road and Oxford Road.
Collective Private Sector leadership has in the past publicly called upon the government, via media advertisements, to take charge of the crime situation and bring it under control. Forums have been held on the issue which has a serious impact on the Jamaican economy.
What Ms. Jordan's powerful voice from the donor community who "live here too" is advocating, in an unusual departure from diplomatic reserve, is the pulling together of an "action plan".
The critical elements of such a plan, it seems to us, exist on paper - perhaps on too many bits of paper. What we read the USAID representative to be requesting, from a keen understanding of the country's crime situation evident in her extended delivery, is that the country's social partners pull together to meet the challenge of crime.
The wider donor community, she believes, is willing to help fill resource gaps identified in such a comprehensive crime reduction plan. Already USAID has committed to working over the next four years to help reduce crime and violence in the Grants Pen and Standpipe areas of Kingston.
Ms. Jordan's host, the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, is well positioned to provide leadership to further explore and follow up her outspoken observations and recommendations out of vested interests stronger than those of the donor community.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner.
