DCP Bailey calls for review of justice system to address violence

By Prince Moore    

 

Deputy Commissioner of Police Fitz Bailey is calling for a comprehensive review of Jamaica's justice system, including correctional institutions, as a means of addressing the longstanding issue of violence in the country.

 

His comments come amid the country recording multiple murders in several shooting incidents.

 

DCP Bailey revealed on Wednesday that 85 double murders have been committed in Jamaica so far this year, compared to 95 last year.

 

He said the country has also recorded 16 triple murders, just one down down from 17 last year.

 

Four quadruple murders have been carried out so far this year, compared to two during the corresponding period in 2022.  

 

DCP Bailey said prisoners are behind several of the murders as they give the orders from behind bars. 

 

He has therefore urged that proper programmes be established in the correctional system to reform inmates.

 

"I think we have to really, really pay some more attention to the prison structure, create proper programmes for the inmates within the penal institution, ensure that they are exposed to things that will change the way they think. It's not an easy task, but we need the will power to really treat with that, because what we're going to do is to arrest, put them in jail, and then we breed a factory of criminals and they come back on the street and continue to perpetrate the crime," he asserted.  

 

The senior cop was speaking on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines. 

 

 

In the meantime, social anthropologist Dr. Herbert Gayle has said too much emphasis is placed on the police to deal with a rising murder rate.

 

He said other institutions must play their part in addressing the root cause of crime. 

 

"It does require a whole violence reduction plan and that means looking at the four bars - how many persons are deprived of food, deprived of a support system through parenting, deeper sense of safety and opportunities - because we're seeing data now from Ministry of Education, from all different units of work we're doing now. We're seeing up to 40 per cent of some units of boys saying that they have no idea what tomorrow looks like because they feel already dead. You can't operate a society with that," he argued.   

  

Dr. Gayle was also a guest on Beyond the Headlines.