PSOJ President Oliver Clarke speaking at a press conference at the organisation's Hope Road, St. Andrew office yesterday. With him is executive director Greta Bogues. - Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer PRIVATE SECTOR Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) President, Oliver Clarke, said yesterday that he was "reasonably hopeful" that the upcoming general election would be the most peaceful in the history of the country.
Speaking at a press briefing at the PSOJ's Hope Road office in St. Andrew, Mr. Clarke said the organisation is continuing to meet with a number of relevant bodies, including various interest groups, in a move to reduce crime and violence. He noted that the crime report that the organisation along with the two major political parties has been developing has been going through a number of refinements and should be made public shortly.
Against the background of a recent meeting between the Government, the Opposition and the PSOJ over charges made by Opposition Leader Edward Seaga that the security forces were being specially trained to intimidate them in the upcoming election, Mr. Clarke said:
"... It is important, from our point of view, that if the Opposition feels that it is threatened by the security forces than there is a mechanism with which they can discuss that and try and have their concerns dealt with. And similarly, that wherever possible, people take crime and violence out of being a political issue and try and form common consensus as to ways in which we can deal with that.
"I think those discussions have been going along quite well and I must say that I am quite hopeful at this point that we will be able to have an election without a very high level of increased violence," he said.
Mr. Clarke said that as part of the efforts to assist in curbing crime, the PSOJ has employed a research assistant to try and analyse crime trends over the years "so that we can get a better understanding of what's happening".
He said it was "interesting to us" that while there has been an increase in the three major crimes against the person murder, assault and rape there has been, over the past three to four years, a fairly substantial decline in the amount of crimes, such as robbery and burglary, that have been directed against property.
"It does appear that the strategy of having large amounts of private security has led to a country that is much safer than it used to be in terms of property crimes. But the three big crimes against the person murder, assault and rape have been increasing," he said. "It seems to us possible that the increase in the number of rape cases might be because people are reporting rape more readily now than they used to due to people being more sympathetic when women come in and report rape and it might be that there has been under-reporting on that in the past."
PSOJ executive director Greta Bogues notes that the "Get the Guns" campaign initiated by Minister of National Security Peter Phillips about three months ago has been successful so far in that it has generated at least a 100 per cent increase in information supplied to the security forces and the number of guns recovered.
She said that within the past three months, Crime Stop, a private/public sector initiative, has had what she called "very good success". And while noting they have been working with the Ministry of National Security in the "Get the Guns" programme, she said data on the number of firearms recovered during the past three months and the number of arrests made would be revealed at a press conference at a later date. However, she said "there has been a lot of success with the new programme and it has actually generated at least 100 per cent increase in the calls and finds so far."
