Edmond Campbell, News Coordinator

Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Leader Bruce Golding (second right) and Sally Porteous (third left), JLP candidate for Central Manchester, are flanked by party supporters during a tour of the constituency on Thursday. - Ian Allen/StaffPhotographer

Bolstered by a massive turnout of Labourites numbering in the thousands in Central Manchester Thursday night, Opposition Leader Bruce Golding placed the spotlight on the country's most pressing problem - crime and violence - and submitted two approaches to reducing Jamaica's alarming murder rate.

According to Mr. Golding, a national registration system, which was first proposed in the 1970s, but failed to get off the ground, and the fingerprinting of Jamaicans as part of the process, could go a far way in assisting the police in targeting criminals.

Death penalty

Mr. Golding also told jubilant supporters that a JLP administration would reintroduce the death penalty, saying he had no apology for the proposed action.

Addressing party followers at a JLP rally in Grey Ground, Manchester, the Opposition Leader said every Jamaican at the age of 14 years would be required to have a national identification card, with a unique number.

He said the national ID would enable the police to carry out checks through its surveillance network to identify and track wrongdoers by random inspection and cross-matching of fingerprints.

"Once they (the police) swipe your ID card and once they take your finger and check it, it must be able to show in a few seconds. It must say, 'This is the man that is wanted for about six murders,'" said Mr. Golding, as he explained how the system would work.

"Part of the problem is that this Government refuses to issue death warrants," he said adding that, when pressured, the authorities would issue warrants to carry out the death penalty, but by that time, five years would have elapsed, which means the sentence would have to be commuted to life imprisonment.

He said a JLP administration would rid the force of corrupt cops, who at times were in league with criminals.

He also promised social programmes for depressed communities islandwide "to create hope" for young people and to turn them away from a life of crime.

The party was touring the Central Manchester constituency, where the JLP's Sally Porteous will try to wrest the seat from the People's National Party, which will be fielding a new candidate in Peter Bunting.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com