Use provisions under JCF Act to fight crime, suggests JFJ

 

Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) believes that the government should utilise provisions under the Jamaica Constabulary Force Act to address the crime problem plaguing St. James instead of relying on a State of Public Emergency.

 

JFJ's Executive Director Mickel Jackson believes the fluctuation in the crime figures in St. James is due to a lack of consistent community policing. 

 

"Where is the police presence in the communities when the SOE is not imposed? What is the level of police presence that is consistent? The JCF Act currently allows for curfews and so on to be imposed. The only thing the SOE gives us that the JCF Act doesn't is the ability of the police officers to go into your homes to search without a warrant, to be able to detain people for an extended period of time," she noted. 

 

Ms Jackson also questioned the effectiveness of the use of the SOE by pointing to data from the Ministry of National Security which revealed that only few people detained under the emergency measure have been charged and convicted.

 

She said the SOE and hard policing measures have had a negative effect on residents. 

 

"We cannot make a decision for citizens who, in most instances, are voiceless in their ability to say we don't want this. We cannot make a decision for persons, in most instances. Those who are poor from low income communities are the ones that are going to be drawn up in those police truck backs, those are the ones who are going to be placed in those detention facilities, those are the very ones who can't afford the lawyers that will ensure that their rights are so protected," Ms. Jackson lamented. 

 

She was a guest Thursday on the Morning Agenda on Power 106FM.