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LAST WEEK, the national security minister, Mr Peter Bunting, made two important and related declarations - one policy, the other an expected policy outcome - that found favour with this newspaper.
The easier one concerns the administration's intention to retain Mr Owen Ellington as Jamaica's police commissioner. The other is the minister's target of reducing Jamaica's homicide rate to 12 per 100,000 of population over the next five years. Considered in its full context, the minister's goal for the reduction of murders is monumental.
Until two years ago, Jamaica was very near, if not at the top of the global league table for murders. At over 1,600 killings a year, excluding those by the police, the homicide rate was well over 60 per 100,000. That has dropped to around 41 per 100,000 after the violent 2010 intervention by the security forces into Tivoli Gardens to arrest the mobster and political strong-arm man, Christopher Coke, in response to an extradition request from the United States.
The Tivoli incident, even though it undermined the criminal infrastructure of the drug kingpin, was sadly violent. It cost over 70 lives, including members of Coke's private militia and, it is claimed, innocent victims of excesses by the security forces. One Jamaica Defence Force soldier was also killed in the operation.
Mix of policies
Now, Mr Bunting proposes, by 2017, to slash the murder rate by another 71 per cent. This would mean homicides would be around 325, against over 1,400 in 2011.
To achieve this, Mr Bunting is banking on a mix of policies ranging from how the country is policed to the introduction of new laws to confront gangs, the creative use of existing legislation to reduce the economic value of crime to its perpetrators, and generally building trust in the society for law enforcement.
"...We don't want to be chasing symptoms," he said. "We want to treat the infection ... so the approach will be to take the profit out of crime," he said.
Talk is cheap
But as Mr Bunting himself remarked, "talk is cheap". Indeed, there have been many declarations in the past about reducing crime, which not only affect the country's social well-being but its economic output. We, therefore, look forward to a roll, with greater specificity, of fuller elements of Mr Bunting's policies and the strategies and tactics for their implementation.
We, however, believe that there exists the basis of a good partnership between the minister and Police Chief Ellington.
First, we sense that Mr Ellington has a broad strategic vision for the force which, like Mr Bunting's, is underpinned by measurable targets and supporting strategies and tactics. He, in that respect, is willing to be held accountable. We are also heartened by the police chief's continuation of his predecessors' efforts at modernising the constabulary and making it more accountable.
The police's anti-corruption branch, for instance, has maintained a robust programme of identifying and weeding out members who misbehave and bring the organisation into disrepute by eroding the public trust that is necessary in an effective crime- prevention and crime-detection institution.
We suspect that Mr Ellington's effort does not have universal acclamation in the constabulary, but he ought not to be deterred.
The easier one concerns the administration's intention to retain Mr Owen Ellington as Jamaica's police commissioner. The other is the minister's target of reducing Jamaica's homicide rate to 12 per 100,000 of population over the next five years. Considered in its full context, the minister's goal for the reduction of murders is monumental.
Until two years ago, Jamaica was very near, if not at the top of the global league table for murders. At over 1,600 killings a year, excluding those by the police, the homicide rate was well over 60 per 100,000. That has dropped to around 41 per 100,000 after the violent 2010 intervention by the security forces into Tivoli Gardens to arrest the mobster and political strong-arm man, Christopher Coke, in response to an extradition request from the United States.
The Tivoli incident, even though it undermined the criminal infrastructure of the drug kingpin, was sadly violent. It cost over 70 lives, including members of Coke's private militia and, it is claimed, innocent victims of excesses by the security forces. One Jamaica Defence Force soldier was also killed in the operation.
Mix of policies
Now, Mr Bunting proposes, by 2017, to slash the murder rate by another 71 per cent. This would mean homicides would be around 325, against over 1,400 in 2011.
To achieve this, Mr Bunting is banking on a mix of policies ranging from how the country is policed to the introduction of new laws to confront gangs, the creative use of existing legislation to reduce the economic value of crime to its perpetrators, and generally building trust in the society for law enforcement.
"...We don't want to be chasing symptoms," he said. "We want to treat the infection ... so the approach will be to take the profit out of crime," he said.
Talk is cheap
But as Mr Bunting himself remarked, "talk is cheap". Indeed, there have been many declarations in the past about reducing crime, which not only affect the country's social well-being but its economic output. We, therefore, look forward to a roll, with greater specificity, of fuller elements of Mr Bunting's policies and the strategies and tactics for their implementation.
We, however, believe that there exists the basis of a good partnership between the minister and Police Chief Ellington.
First, we sense that Mr Ellington has a broad strategic vision for the force which, like Mr Bunting's, is underpinned by measurable targets and supporting strategies and tactics. He, in that respect, is willing to be held accountable. We are also heartened by the police chief's continuation of his predecessors' efforts at modernising the constabulary and making it more accountable.
The police's anti-corruption branch, for instance, has maintained a robust programme of identifying and weeding out members who misbehave and bring the organisation into disrepute by eroding the public trust that is necessary in an effective crime- prevention and crime-detection institution.
We suspect that Mr Ellington's effort does not have universal acclamation in the constabulary, but he ought not to be deterred.
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