THE EDITOR, Sir:
I AM glad to see that two newspapers have recently written editorials on the critical state of crime in Jamaica today and have fairly and squarely placed the responsibility on the Government for failing to deal with the problem.
The editorials also, of course, call on the Government to take action to bring this terrible level of crime under control.
For a long time I have been bemused by the many commentators, on radio talk shows and the newspapers, who talk about the crime problem as if it is something that has mysteriously descended on the country like a plague, and we do not know where it has come from or what to do about it.
Everyone has failed to state clearly that it is the Government's prime obligation to maintain law and order in the country.
This PNP Government and three others, from 1989 to the present, have consistently failed to perform this basic obligation of the state.
CONNECTION
We have seen it get worse and worse, until now we are finally beginning to make the connection between the quality of government that we have been suffering from and the crime problem we are facing. Why has this taken so long?
Hopefully, now that we seem to be waking up, can the Government take any one of the several plans that have been developed over the last10 years or more, dust it off, and implement it? The time for talk is over. We must insist that the Government takes action and stop pretending that it is not their responsibility.
I am, etc.,
C.D.R. BOVELL
Duke Street, Kingston
