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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Politics one of the causes of crime wave, says Phillips</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>BY ERICA VIRTUE Observer writer virtuee@jamaicaobserver.com
Monday, March 19, 2007
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<P class=StoryText align=justify>National Security Minister Dr Peter Phillips says the wave of criminality and crime rocking Jamaica have made many perpetrators victims of their own actions, and among the causative factors are the failure of politics, insufficient budgetary allocation and the education system.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=120 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>PHILLIPS. one of the greatest challenges to contemporary politics is the restoration of the rule of law </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Phillips, in a guest address to the Norman Manley Law School Students Association Lecture 2007, at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus on Thursday night, said one of the greatest challenges to contemporary politics was the restoration of the rule of law.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Failure to do so, he said, will strangle the spirit of nationalism which many, including late National Hero Norman Washington Manley, spent nearly all their lives giving to Jamaica. According to the minister, the country must cease practising the politics of paralysis and begin a massive national effort to revolutionise the education system started by N W Manley.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Phillips, in his lecture titled 'Contemporary Challenges in Nation Building: Politics and the rule of Law', said in many urban communities small armies of young men armed with high-powered weapons maraud at will and repel all but the most intensive efforts of the country's security forces to impose the rule of law.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"This, more than anything, threatens the very survival of the Jamaican state and, by extension, poses the possibility of the collapse of the entire nationalist project originated by N W Manley and his colleagues," Phillips said.
He bemoaned the increasing brutality of criminals, especially on the citizenry, but moreso on the young and the aged and made reference to the murders of two children in Portmore, St Catherine last Wednesday night.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The children, six-year-old Tajae Smith and his 16-year-old sister, Tavia, were shot dead in their home by gunmen.
Addressing the solutions to the country's crime problem, Phillips said that while he was clear about what needed to be done, some things are more easily accomplished than others.
"First, it is the need to sustain the modernisation and reform of the security forces," he said.<P class=StoryText align=justify>In turn, this requires sustained, predictable and sufficient budgetary resources to acquire the necessary new technologies and manpower. Also, it requires political understanding and the will to put in place the necessary legislative and administrative provisions to enable the identification, investigation, conviction and effective punishment of criminals."<P class=StoryText align=justify>He also said that there was no possibility of overcoming social alienation and the criminality it breeds, "if 80 per cent of our secondary school leavers cannot meet the basic requirements for functioning in the world of work".<P class=StoryText align=justify>The need for human and material resources was so great, he said, that only the most comprehensive mobilisation of the country's national will can suffice to meet this challenge.
"For that to happen, we will need a political process rooted in a vision of its unassailable integrity, that can spearhead such a mobilisation and help t
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>BY ERICA VIRTUE Observer writer virtuee@jamaicaobserver.com
Monday, March 19, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>National Security Minister Dr Peter Phillips says the wave of criminality and crime rocking Jamaica have made many perpetrators victims of their own actions, and among the causative factors are the failure of politics, insufficient budgetary allocation and the education system.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=120 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>PHILLIPS. one of the greatest challenges to contemporary politics is the restoration of the rule of law </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Phillips, in a guest address to the Norman Manley Law School Students Association Lecture 2007, at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus on Thursday night, said one of the greatest challenges to contemporary politics was the restoration of the rule of law.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Failure to do so, he said, will strangle the spirit of nationalism which many, including late National Hero Norman Washington Manley, spent nearly all their lives giving to Jamaica. According to the minister, the country must cease practising the politics of paralysis and begin a massive national effort to revolutionise the education system started by N W Manley.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Phillips, in his lecture titled 'Contemporary Challenges in Nation Building: Politics and the rule of Law', said in many urban communities small armies of young men armed with high-powered weapons maraud at will and repel all but the most intensive efforts of the country's security forces to impose the rule of law.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"This, more than anything, threatens the very survival of the Jamaican state and, by extension, poses the possibility of the collapse of the entire nationalist project originated by N W Manley and his colleagues," Phillips said.He bemoaned the increasing brutality of criminals, especially on the citizenry, but moreso on the young and the aged and made reference to the murders of two children in Portmore, St Catherine last Wednesday night.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The children, six-year-old Tajae Smith and his 16-year-old sister, Tavia, were shot dead in their home by gunmen.
Addressing the solutions to the country's crime problem, Phillips said that while he was clear about what needed to be done, some things are more easily accomplished than others.
"First, it is the need to sustain the modernisation and reform of the security forces," he said.<P class=StoryText align=justify>In turn, this requires sustained, predictable and sufficient budgetary resources to acquire the necessary new technologies and manpower. Also, it requires political understanding and the will to put in place the necessary legislative and administrative provisions to enable the identification, investigation, conviction and effective punishment of criminals."<P class=StoryText align=justify>He also said that there was no possibility of overcoming social alienation and the criminality it breeds, "if 80 per cent of our secondary school leavers cannot meet the basic requirements for functioning in the world of work".<P class=StoryText align=justify>The need for human and material resources was so great, he said, that only the most comprehensive mobilisation of the country's national will can suffice to meet this challenge.
"For that to happen, we will need a political process rooted in a vision of its unassailable integrity, that can spearhead such a mobilisation and help t