Vernon Daley

Somehow, the crime problem didn't get big play during the recent general election. It's as though the political leaders sat down and hammered out a pact to downplay the issue during their campaigns. It's as though the media were enticed to go along with it.

This is a bit of a puzzle, given that crime, especially murder, continues to be the most pressing problem facing this country. Maybe we are all just too jaded and would rather not deal with the reality of four-month-old babies being slaughtered like hogs.

Last week's multiple killings in East Kingston have sadly become a fixture of life for the people of this once fair isle. Many Jamaicans, at the end of their tether, now find bizarre comfort in telling themselves that these killings are gang-related and therefore unlikely to happen to them because they are not 'mix-up'.

That's one of the coping mechanisms we have developed to deal with this crisis. If you have some dirt in the house and it's bothering you, one way to tackle it is just to take a broom and sweep it under the carpet. The dirt is still there but at least it's out of sight.

As a society, we have collectively swept the problems of our inner-city communities under the carpet. We don't want to deal with them. We pretend they don't exist. Yet, we wonder why these areas have become such fertile breeding ground for vicious criminals; the kind of criminals who have no hesitation in outing the light of four-month-old babies.

Huge sections of our depressed urban communities across the country have been left ungoverned for too long and therefore, have grown up to be ungovernable. Go through any of these inner-city areas in Kingston and observe the old mattresses, bed springs, car tyres and junk of every sort which are used to barricade roads. These areas are at war with the security forces. They are at war with themselves.

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The rest of the society knows that people live in such terror, lawlessness and desperation, but it's easier to sweep that dirt right under the carpet than to confront it. Let them kill off one another, some would say.

The state needs to re-establish its presence in some of these areas if this crime problem is going to be brought under some kind of control. The police and soldiers are sent in for a few days after the breakout of violence, only to withdraw again until another flare-up. In the meantime, ordinary, God-fearing people are left to the wolves.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding has rightly put great store on growing the economy and creating jobs, jobs and more jobs as an important aspect of uplifting some of these areas. However, we have to do something to stop the bloodletting while the jobs are getting here.

We need a massive inner-city development programme that draws upon the school, the church, the security forces, the business community and civic groups in an alliance aimed at plugging back these communities into the rest of this society. The people of these areas need a powerful signal that they have not been forgotten. We have to start giving them rea to a life of crime. If we don't, then we shouldn't be too surprised if they turn their guns on four-month-old babies.