THE EDITOR, Sir:
ALTHOUGH IT is still early for a full and most accurate assessment, the recent government-implemented crime initiative seems very promising and, with the full commitment of everyone, should go a far way in correcting or reducing our nation's unacceptable crime rate.
Unlike previous crime initiatives, this measure is more comprehensive in scope insofar as it involves a social and economic framework. Hence, such a proposal should have a more long-term effect in correcting the crime problems and improving the sub-standard social and economic conditions that have too long affected far too many of our communities.
During the recent general election campaign, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) pledged, if it formed the government, to eradicate the slum conditions that existed in several Jamaican communities, and construct more affordable and decent housing stock for our inner-city residents.
This new crime initiative presents an ideal opportunity for the JLP to work with the PNP-led government to bring to fruition such a plan to help in ensuring a better Jamaica for all our people. That the JLP is in opposition and not the government does not mean that it cannot and should not still aim to contribute to the betterment of all Jamaicans and Jamaica. At any rate, all the Members of Parliament (MPs) were elected and the Senators appointed to represent the needs and interests of all Jamaicans, irrespective of their being in the opposition or in the government.
The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) and other private sector bodies have expressed their support for the new crime initiative. Merely giving verbal support to the initiative is not sufficient, however. The PSOJ and related private sector bodies should assist with the economic renewal process, by encouraging their members to set up business operations in the inner-city areas and implore their members to discontinue the discriminatory practice of not extending employment opportunities to inner city residents. Inner city residents need a livelihood too, so efforts must be made to ensure job opportunities are available to them. The government could encourage this process by extending various incentives, such as tax breaks, to companies that invest in inner city areas and/or extend job opportunities to these residents.
The crime initiative also presents a key opportunity for the two major political parties, the PNP and the JLP, to sever all ties with the so-called dons of the various garrison communities. These criminal elements cannot continue to be the de facto politicians or MPs, lawyers, doctors, judges, police officers, counsellors and clergy-people, fathers, job providers, and the like; while raping, killing, and impinging on the constitutional rights and guarantees of our people residing in these communities.
The schools, the churches and community organisations should go into the affected communities to assist with counselling and providing such similar services to the affected people. Children should be encouraged and assisted to strive for academic and other such successes; they should be encouraged to plan for a future and not just focus on whether they will live to see the next day without being brutalised, raped or murdered.
The residents need job counselling and other such services so that they too can contribute positively to the overall development of Jamaica. If these Jamaicans continue to be surrounded by an atmosphere that evidences only hopelessness, it is difficult for them to concentrate on making any long-term plans for their overall betterment and, consequently, the betterment of Jamaica.
It is only sensible that all of us, as Jamaicans, do our part in ensuring the betterment of Jamaica and every Jamaicans. As Mr. Seaga has often lamented, there cannot continue to be two Jamaicas existing within the one sovereign state of Jamaica. Let us now rise to the occasion and help to make Jamaica a better place for us all.
I am etc.,
KKO SANGSTER
Attorney-at-law
Elkins Park
Pennyslvania, U.S.A.
sangstek@msn.com
Via Go-Jamaica
