Tweet
I’m not going to make a personal comment one way or the other, not even a reply to a meaningful post. We’ve been through this before on this forum, and as I’ve pointed out in the past, many of us are, to some extent (by way of our chosen way of thinking and by the things we choose to support), a part of Jamaica’s ongoing social problem!
Here are brief (unfortunately, much too brief) words of a noted Jamaican psychiatrist.
Kill or be killed!
Many gangsters would rather die than face humiliation in prison
By HG HELPS Editor-at-Large Investigative Coverage Unit icu@jamaicaobserver.com
Sunday, July 05, 2009
THEY wield considerable power, authority and influence on the mean streets of some of Jamaica's toughest inner-city communities, earning themselves such epitaphs as 'cold', 'dog-heart', 'brazen' and even 'fearless'.
Police have often seen the empty eyes behind the guns spitting death. Senior Superintendent of Police Calvin Benjamin knows men who have boldly stated that they would rather die than be captured by the police and carted off to prison upon conviction for a crime.
IRONS... some people believe that death is better than living
"A number of accused persons are repeat offenders and one of the things that they don't like is to be arrested by the police. They would rather be killed than be arrested," said Benjamin, the head of operations at the Criminal Investigation Bureau.
Psychiatrist Dr Aggrey Irons puts most of the blame for this philosophy on the emergence of television, the cellular telephone, lottery games and the influence of deejays on the society.
"What is happening in the world today is that some people believe that death is better than living. In the eastern part of the world for example, suicide bombers have a different outlook on life. With us in this region, the advent of TV, cellular, lottery etc, all the things that make life happen fast matter now.
"There is a feeling among young men that 'If I can't make it, I might as well fake it. If I can't fake it, I might as well take it', meaning the bullet.
"A youth will say, 'I might as well go out in a blaze of glory, because you know in prison there is this homophobic feeling that a man is going to feel up my bottom and so on'.
"There are many of these people around. The problem is also caused by the technology, the speed and the music industry. The lyrics of the deejays and the lifestyles of the deejays fuel it," Dr Irons said.
Here are brief (unfortunately, much too brief) words of a noted Jamaican psychiatrist.
Kill or be killed!
Many gangsters would rather die than face humiliation in prison
By HG HELPS Editor-at-Large Investigative Coverage Unit icu@jamaicaobserver.com
Sunday, July 05, 2009
THEY wield considerable power, authority and influence on the mean streets of some of Jamaica's toughest inner-city communities, earning themselves such epitaphs as 'cold', 'dog-heart', 'brazen' and even 'fearless'.
Police have often seen the empty eyes behind the guns spitting death. Senior Superintendent of Police Calvin Benjamin knows men who have boldly stated that they would rather die than be captured by the police and carted off to prison upon conviction for a crime.
IRONS... some people believe that death is better than living
"A number of accused persons are repeat offenders and one of the things that they don't like is to be arrested by the police. They would rather be killed than be arrested," said Benjamin, the head of operations at the Criminal Investigation Bureau.
Psychiatrist Dr Aggrey Irons puts most of the blame for this philosophy on the emergence of television, the cellular telephone, lottery games and the influence of deejays on the society.
"What is happening in the world today is that some people believe that death is better than living. In the eastern part of the world for example, suicide bombers have a different outlook on life. With us in this region, the advent of TV, cellular, lottery etc, all the things that make life happen fast matter now.
"There is a feeling among young men that 'If I can't make it, I might as well fake it. If I can't fake it, I might as well take it', meaning the bullet.
"A youth will say, 'I might as well go out in a blaze of glory, because you know in prison there is this homophobic feeling that a man is going to feel up my bottom and so on'.
"There are many of these people around. The problem is also caused by the technology, the speed and the music industry. The lyrics of the deejays and the lifestyles of the deejays fuel it," Dr Irons said.
Comment