THE EDITOR, Sir:
I WOULD like to respond to the letter, 'Questions on Crime', July 14, which I think was "the voice" of many concerned Jamaicans at home and abroad.
I am particularly in favour of the final statement made by Ms. Williams which calls for a recreation of lives and minds in order to work toward a solution to the problem. This "reformation mentality" is needed throughout the whole country where there is a focus not on the negative aspects but a lauding of the positive aspects of the nature of the country which makes it what it is.
If every time there is criminal activity and the media give that centre stage on the airwaves and in the newspapers, then the nature of the nation will be shaped around giving more attention to those issues rather than focusing on the positive attributes of the nation.
I really don't have the privilege to be long in this letter but I think where we need to begin is to make every effort as a nation to give merit to the great things that we continually achieve as a nation and stop giving this extreme attention to crime.
I have a strange feeling that criminals are "justifiably" ap-peased by the exhorting of their criminal acts in the first few pages of the newspaper. The question they are asking is, "When else are we recognised?"
If we give that kind of recognition to crime and violence then we are ultimately giving it priority over that which truly shapes us as a nation. Like Ms. Williams, I believe we have to first bring a reformation to the mentalities of the nation's people as to what merits our attention. Is it crime or is it our intrinsic abilities to attract the rest of the world to our shores?
I am, etc.,
'CONCERNED BUT
HOPEFUL'
marlstew@hotmail.com
London , England
Via Go-Jamaica
