By Nagra Plunkett, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
MONTEGO BAY, St. James is fast replicating the crime profile of Kingston, a situation which stands to threaten the city's thriving tourism sector.
This is the view of Dr. Anthony Harriott, lecturer in criminology at the University of the West Indies, Mona.
"Your (Montego Bay) murder rate has skyrocketed within the last two years...I've really been racking my brain to think of another tourist destination that has a comparable homicide rate," said Dr. Harriott.
"It raises the issue, if the homicide rate as you now have it, is to stay, whether the city will continue to be viable as a tourist destination."
The UWI lecturer was addressing Wednesday night's public consultation on crime prevention in the tourist resort. He advised the city's residents to be mindful of both its dependence on tourism as well its small demographic area in relation to its recent crime wave.
VULNERABLE TO VIOLENCE
"Small size means that people everywhere are likely to be threatened by the violence and tourism dependence means that your economy is more vulnerable to violence," he explained. "Once a violent reputation develops then the city will get in trouble economically."
The senior lecturer explained that in recent years 65-70 per cent of the murders in Jamaica occurred in the Corporate Area of Kingston and St. Andrew. However, his research into crime trends has revealed that western Jamaica is steadily becoming a high crime area, in particular, Montego Bay.
He said that the nation must take on the role of civic activism in order to be successful in its fight against crime.
Said he: "We have been ranking schools and mayors and I think perhaps we should also consider a ranking of the civic activism of the population of our cities and towns, as without civic activism you can't have cities and towns with low crime rate," Dr. Harriott stated.
"My argument is that the problem is so deep in Jamaica that the civic movement is needed to drive the process of change and to make crime control in this country more effective."
