The Editor, Sir:

Crime and violence, like health and disease, is multifaceted, multidimensional, and result from a complex interaction of many factors. Factors such as overpopulated ghettos, unemployed youths, some of whom are wooed by gangs and eventually succumb to the use of firearms as the weapon of choice for survival. In addition, there is also the significant factor of an emotional state of mind, as every action springs from a germ thought - good and bad. The mind is a powerful tool in the crime and violence episode, as whatever it can conceive it can also achieve. This is the nature and complexity of the crime jigsaw puzzle.

These conditions did not fall out of the sky overnight but, like some of the major chronic degenerative diseases - cancer and heart - they take years to manifest themselves.

Is crime and violence a lifestyle disease? Yes, Dis-Ease in other words, is a lack of ease which is really a process, not an entity or thing. Lifestyle diseases are Jamaica's number one killer, accounting for a high percentage of deaths each year. As the nation's frightening crime statistics spiral out of control, it poses a serious challenge to the five main degenerative diseases.

Understanding serious crime and violence needs more than the eye can see. It is like energy. In our quest to tame the crime monster we have to continually search for the aetiology of the underlying causes, as a proliferation of this disease can be confidently expected in the near future unless 'we avert the root causes'.

The 'political will' of a government will face a formidable challenge in finding a solution to this vexing problem which preoccupies the nation, and which challenges its concentration on matters such as the high cost of living, job creation, and rebuilding of the socio-economic factors.

Revolution and transformation

Transformation is going to be a long, hot summer, as it will take decades for the country to build up resources and revenues to address the 'idiosyncrasies'. The good news is that the revolution and transformation can take place over time with prudence and expediency. However, there is a subtle distinction between crime prevention and crime fighting which are mutually exclusive and should be analysed accordingly.

In the final analysis, crime and violence should be viewed in a holistic spectrum with emphasis on the importance of its whole ramification and the interdependence on the socio-economic sectors. What you sow you reap. You can't plant peas and expect to reap corn.

I am, etc.,

DR VANCE LANNAMAN, NMD

naturaldoc@cwjamaica.com