SOEs need accompanying strategies to solve crime - Gayle

 

Social anthropologist Dr. Herbert Gayle has said states of emergency are ineffective in solving crime if they are not accompanied by other violence reduction strategies. 

 

Dr. Gayle said most crime plans in Latin America and the Caribbean are only treating the symptoms of violence and not addressing the root cause. 

 

"What we are seeing in the region, and this is not just Jamaica, is that people are in line more and more on the SOEs, which is why some scholars, including myself, have described it as ‘morphinisation’ - meaning you go to a hospital, they give you the morphine and morphine kicks in and you feel as if you no longer have a problem but you still need the surgery."

 

"What is missing in the entire region is working on this surgery, which is a plan that everybody understands, a plan that is sold to the people, built on research, that we're going to do these five-six things to bring the violence down, which are separate from this operation," he put forward. 

 

Dr. Gayle wants more focus placed on primary interventions to tackle crime and violence.  

 

"You have to look at what is feeding your violence. Lots and lots of people who are unemployed, lots and lots of people who are ready to be drawn into the pools of organised crime. You have to be shifting your money away from states of emergency and other suppression into those frames and you need the research that shows you precisely where and how and when to do this," he insisted.   

 

Dr. Gayle was speaking Sunday on Radio Jamaica's weekly news review programme, That's a Rap.