THE EDITOR, Sir:POOR RENETO,...my sympathies also to Mr. Forbes, and Minister Phillips. Jamaica has now discovered that the medicine is almost as painful as the sickness. Crime is a major growth sector in our economy as well as globally. Crime is big business. The police force is to crime like the Consumer Association facing down global corporations... a small but important regulator.
Policing is one aspect of crime control and the one that the crime empires find it easiest to control. They either do this directly (money, muscle etc.) or indirectly, working through upstanding social organisations, the latter being a most effective 'value for money' solution. What a monster is crime.
I learned from my mother that most situations are like baking a cake; it's not the flour that makes the cake, not even the butter, the sugar, the eggs, the baking powder, and the vanilla. All of these and more, in the right proportion are needed to make a cake.
It then requires tremendous elbow grease. At every stage things have to be right, too little or too much of anything and you will not make cake.
The USA has dozens of security agencies and this does not include those who 'watch the watchers'; some agencies are overt, others covert, some are knowledge-based, others are 'muscle'.
Jamaica does not yet have a serious knowledge-based, intelligence-driven, cellular security agency, which recruits from existing agencies as well as from the creative intellectual community at large.
The criminals not only can 'outgun' the police force they also can 'outthink' it as well. The crime empires recruit widely, full-time and day-release, high talent as well as 'muscle' ...the Jamaican police is into lock-step career-pathing. Crime empires on the other hand are creative, eclectic, opportunistic and schooled in developed societies; our police are trained in 'the box'.
Modern security is 90 per cent intellectual activity and 10 per cent muscle. During the 70s and 80s, the recruitment of covert operatives from university and business was significant. Few wore a uniform or carried a gun. Pre-emption was always the key. The model is not perfect but we can learn from these societies. The crime problem can be solved. We have the capacity and the expertise in the country. We need the courage to move to the next level...the crime empires already have.
I am, etc.,
FRANKLIN JOHNSTON
Kingston 4
