Dennie Quill, Contributor
NOT ANOTHER column on crime and violence, I thought. But this week, wherever I went, that's what people were talking about. Worse, I keep hearing the deafening screams of Sasha-Kay, as her little body is being seared by intolerable heat, deliberately set by evil men. What manner of people are these? Do they have girlfriends, wives, mothers, children? I feel I owe it to her and all the other children who have been slaughtered in Jamaica to tackle the subject yet again.
Numbed by the level of viciousness seen in recent killings many citizens are asking: "What can we do to protect ourselves? What is the government doing? Why are the police not doing more since they know the perpetrators? Where are the guns coming from and who is going to stem the flow? There are no answers.
Nothing seems to be having an effect - not demonstrations, not vigils, not media outrage.
And people are on the move once again. A 30-year-old businesswoman told me she was not prepared to bring up her son in these killing fields. "I won't even allow him to play outside because I am afraid of drive-by shooting", she whispered.
Her business is doing well but she has decided to give it all up and flee to someplace where she feels safer. Others, many of them retired, are also making that painful decision to wipe the dust off their feet and flee their beloved country.
CRY OF HOPELESSNESS
I must confess that I don't know the people with whom politicians socialise. But certainly they must be hearing the same cry of hopelessness from their spouses, children and neighbours. Politicians often misjudge public attitudes and may want to dismiss demonstrations and criticisms as being incited by the Opposition or media sensation. There may be some of that, but the majority
of Jamaicans are genuinely concerned about their safety at this time, and they do not feel the Government is sufficiently committed to finding solutions.
The ultimate get-tough punishment for murderers is the death penalty. I was shocked when an acquaintance that once served his country as an envoy to Singapore told me that Fridays were set aside for hangings in that country. And there was not a whimper from anyone. Singapore is the country we like to cite as the utopia - that government is not afraid to introduce tough measures to ensure order in society.
I say ignore human rights groups and allow the law to take its course.
The time has come for the 60 men and women of our Parliament to understand that only stronger enforcement efforts will return our sick country to a state of wellness.
TERRORISED BY GANGS
Legislation is one method that the United States has used effectively to tackle its crime problem. They turned the spotlight on gangs in order to cripple their illegal activities, which included acquiring and distributing weapons, drug-running, extortion, killings and witness intimidation and elimination. A gangbuster bill was rushed through the Congress elevating crimes committed by street gangs to Federal offences. It also meant mandatory minimum sentences for gang crime.
Gang members were systematically rounded up and jailed and injunctions were obtained to prohibit gang members from congregating in public. Some of these solutions have worked and we can ask the city of Los Angeles to tell us how they managed to bring their roughly 950 different gangs under control.
What are we doing about our gangs who are territorially organised; whose infighting has claimed innocent lives? Communities who mistakenly see gangs as their protectors will understand otherwise when the rivals start firing guns at each other - many innocents are likely to be caught in the crossfire. The answer is to stop shielding gangsters and keep your side of an important bargain. Turn them in before they transform your community into a bloodbath. Tell the police where the community guns are kept and let them retrieve them. Gang members should be hunted down, effectively prosecuted and taken off the streets for a long time.
The Parliament should now be considering a range of options for punishing offenders such as flogging. Yes, men whose hearts are so cold to cause a nine year old to burn to death should be taken into Half-Way Tree and whipped. Desperate measures require desperate responses. Another option is that these offenders should be made to compensate their victims and this is not soft punishment. When they wipe out the
breadwinner of the family they should be made to spend the rest of their lives working to send the children to school and pay the bills.
God help us if we don't treat this matter with urgency.
Dennie Quill is a veteran journalist who may be reached at denniequill@hotmail.com
