Noel Thompson, Freelance Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Chairman of the St. James Parish Development Committee (STPDC), Mark Kerr-Jarrett, wants government to introduce a biometric identity card that should be mandatory for everyone to carry to help in curtailing crime.
Kerr-Jarrett was speaking at a special meeting of the St. James Peace Management Initiative (PMI), held at the Roman Catholic Chancery in Montego Bay on Monday evening. The meeting saw representatives from a cross section of the Montego Bay community, including medical, religious and education professionals, as well as the St. James police.
The PMI's objective is to establish early warning and intervention mechanisms within specific communities, which will allow for the early detection and management of potentially explosive criminal or violent situations.
Kerr-Jarrett supported the thought that the growing crime problem facing Norwood was due to a lack of infrastructure, inaccessibility to the community by the security forces and the emergency services, as well as the lack of security of tenure.
Noting that the capture and conviction rate of criminals was extremely low, Kerr-Jarrett said the justice system needed to be reviewed, such as the rule of evidence, the legal code, the Gun Powder and Explosives Act, fingerprinting and DNA.
"If a criminal believes that he can commit a crime and the likelihood of him being arrested and convicted is below 50 per cent, it sends a signal that he has something he can make a career out of," he said. "Every single person in this country should have on record, at least their fingerprint on a national database. In other countries, such as the United States, babies have the prints of their palms and feet and a DNA sample taken at birth and that becomes a permanent part of their social security records.
"From this a database of human signatures is developed that can be used in identifying fingerprints at crime scenes. This can help in the capture and conviction rate," he said.
Kerr-Jarrett, a businessman and advocate for peace in the inner-city communities, noted that the thought of measures making it more likely that a person may be arrested and convicted of a crime was in itself a deterrent to crime.
