Emergency! - Strong leadership, stricter laws and male programmes needed to reduce crime was the cry from the Jamaica Gleaner published on Tuesday October 9, 2007 .
The solution to the crime problem in Jamaica is not as simple as stated, nor is it ascribable to a number of cause and effects. Yet, when all the symptoms are put together into one 'jug' and shaken up together, one begins to realise that the hybridization effect is a mammoth called 'crime' in our country.
Power 106 FM Talk show host Wilmot Perkins laments frequently on his show about the reasoning behind the criminal 'mindset' - the criminal he recognised as a victim of the system; a man who was once born an innocent baby to his parents; just like the four-month-old baby whose life he has just snuffed-out for no apparent reason in the recent East Kingston rampage.
At what point in the criminal's life does he change from being a sweet little boy, doted on by all, certainly loved by his mama who wanted and hope the best in life for him, sacrificing much
of her own life to ensure that her boy becomes something in life that she could be proud of.
When in the continuum of events does change occur? Is it an abrupt change that brings insensitivity to the heart and soul of the Jamaican male criminal, or is it a gradual turn of events, failures and lost dreams, of disappointments in the system, of inequalities on how the social spoils are distributed such that the haves still end up having more, while the poor become even more impoverished.
After the Breaton massacre I wished not for my now teenage son to be anywhere near Jamaica during his six years as a teenager for fear of becoming entangled with the Jamaica Police. That fear was real for me because I recognised that being brought up properly does not change the fact that any common police constable can decide that he doesn't like me or my son, and that is enough to end my son's life and nothing will come out of it - he will just become another statistics, a 'misadventure'.
Our society knows the typical police's story when a youth is killed - he was either reaching for his gun, or knife or trying to attack the police, the police retaliated and the youth lost his life in the process. Statistically, it is questionable why 99.9% of the time, the police who did the killing never gets hurt in the process.
Several years ago when I first started a small manufacturing concern, my then Customs broker had just received his firearm licence, told me that when he went to pick up the licence at the police station, the police on duty threw him a pen knife. The police then told him that he must always carry it (the knife) for alibi - "when you shoot a boy, you have to show the system that it was in self defence, so you plant the knife on the dead youth's body."
A shocking revelation that stuck to my mind to this day, and to which I always recall whenever I heard another news with another typical police story of killing the assailant in self defence. How can crime go away from our country if this atrocity is not abated?
When the Braeton seven and the Tivoli 27 were snuffed out by the police a few years back, and absolutely nothing came out of it, Jamaica thought that because it didn't affected their family directly, every thing was honky-dory. But several younger boys listening to the news and asking their parents, especially single mom parents 'why?', whatever response provided and how it was received would determine how callous their reactions to crime and criminal acts become in the future. Mr. Ronnie Thwaites' Breakfast Talk show once sited certain inner-city youths who never believe that they would ever live to the ripe old age of 25 in Jamaica (so they might as cheap misbehave and enjoy themselves while at it).
My son attended a very good preparatory school and he used to ask me why is it that the female bathroom at his prep. school had mirrors and hand towels and other niceties while the male bathroom was always stack and stink and why nobody cared to see that the male bathroom was in good order. He was only about 6 when he asked this. Now he learnt from age 2 that personal hygiene included lifting up the toilet seat before 'tinkling', as a show of respect for female members who must sit to do their thing. Are our boys being marginalized from early?
When my son went got to high school he asked me again - "mummy, why is it that the Boys school do nothing for the boys on children's day yet the sister school to his school always have special treat for the girls on children's day?" How do simple acts of segregation or marginalization impact on the psyche of the male child in Jamaica? How do these help to encourage or discourage the boys to want to do well at school, to want to excel to the point where University education becomes a natural goal?
Digicel Rising Stars is a good family show that has over the past four seasons helped to bond families and friends together, in addition to its primary and subliminal goals. But the news that one member of the One-Third group that won last year's show has decided not to pursue his intended university education is rather disappointing. Dr. Leachim Semaj once stated on Ronnie Thwaites show that our boys need motivation to know that education and what you make of it always remain with you. Thus, a medical doctor will always get a job in that field way into his ripe old age, but statistics would show that it is a miniscule fraction of the 'bling bling' followers wanting to break into a singing career that actually makes it.
Finally, no amount of military training nor national youth service would influence positively a criminal mind, if that mind is not moulded from early to respect not just the laws of the society, but the basics of the ten commandments in Old Testament.
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