Far from Paradise - Curfew imposed in Kingston community to rein in crime
Published:Monday | October 12, 2020 | 12:11 AM
Christopher Serju/Senior Gleaner Writer
Children were playing on the streetsides.
A woman purchased food at a shop and prepared to get cracking on dinner in the kitchen.
It seemed like a typical lazy Sunday afternoon when the fragrance of rice and peas would waft from sputtering pressure cookers tantalising neighbours.
But the occasional patrol by police and soldiers was a sign that all was not perfect in Paradise Gardens.
Residents of the Kingston community, which was placed under curfew on the weekend, are divided over its effectiveness. The 6 p.m.-6 a.m. lockdown was imposed as part of ongoing measures to curb violence in that sector of the city.
Some residents said that with COVID-19 restrictions already crippling their lifestyles, the curfew did not significantly change how they went about their business. Most persons interviewed said that once they had secured their meal for the day, it was natural for them to retire to the comfort of their homes.
A young mother said that with two youngsters to care for, she had no desire to be on the streets, which have lost their appeal at dusk because of the constant threat of gun violence.
“If the gunmen come fi one man, them naw say excuse and shoot him, them just a spray everybody. So it nuh safe to be out on the street anymore because you just get dead innocently,” the woman, who requested anonymity because of safety concerns, told The Gleaner.
She is now the source of entertainment for her children, who took turns on Sunday playing in her hair and popping pimples in her face.
One man had a beef with fellow residents who repeatedly breached the curfew order.
“It make we feel a little safer, but is not enough because is not the police, nor the soldier, is the people them, because when them say come off the road, by the time they reach up deh so, the people dem gone back, and a deh so the problem create, he said.
A group of young men who had just ended a game of football said they did not view the curfew as necessary or effective.
“The curfew look like it naw work, because shot still a fire and people and pickney life still inna danger,” a young man told The Gleaner.
He said that although most of the young footballers were employed, they were still likely to be profiled by the security forces and be detained at a whim.
In past curfews, he said, police and soldiers would blanket the community - in their faces every second, every minute, every day.
“This anno nuh curfew, the difference is that police and solder look like them get less and bangarang still a gwaan. We not feeling their presence in reducing crime,” the resident said.
He argued that crime reduction did not seem to be the focus of the security forces, whom he accused of spending more time forging romantic relationships than gathering intelligence. Crimes are rarely solved, he said.
“I don’t think that the police do adequate work to ensure our security, because if a crime happen right there so, them just come do them taping. Write weh dem a write and them gone, so most of the crime weh commit inna the community, them go without being solved. So it give the negative energy more strength fi grow because the man dem who armed know seh nutten naw come out this,” he said.
Politicians are also to blame for spiralling crime, say the residents, which they say is a consequence of urban blight and insufficient investment in social programmes.
Election campaigning was not the only time for engaging with the community, the residents said.
“The politician them figure seh them a do good. You ain’t doing no good. The politician them rise up when the election near. Is then you see them get lively," a resident said.
"You should be lively and visibly all the time,” the resident added, noting that long-term investment in the community had the potential to bring lasting peace.