EDITORIAL - Fighting crime on all fronts

Mark Shields, the ex-Scotland Yard officer, who served as a deputy commissioner of police in Jamaica, is right about the fai-lure, so far, to enact legislation allowing for the extraction and use of DNA material in criminal cases.

Mr Shields, it seems, expects the robust use of DNA evidence to be the game-changer in crime fighting in Jamaica, where the police "clear-up" only about a third of the more than 1,600 murders that are committed annually and get convictions on far fewer than that.

"I am told that that the legislation is in the pipeline, but I cannot see why it is taking so long," he said in a speech to the Rotary Club of Kingston last week. Nor can we.

In the meantime, a forensic laboratory, kitted out at a cost of around $20 million, Mr Shields suggests, remains largely underutilised as a crime-fighting tool.

This newspaper believes that all available, appropriate and legal tools must be advanced in the fight against crime and criminality which, in Jamaica, represent dangerous epidemics.

We, like Mr Shields, therefore urge the administration to fast-track the DNA legislation, so that there can be relevant discussion/debate ahead of becoming a critical part of the police's arsenal.

For, as Mr Shields would be aware, any introduction of the right to develop DNA databases is likely to be as controversial as the use of the state of emergency, and similarly tough legislation, as crime-fighting tools.

Human-rights and civil liberty activists will insist that where in other jurisdictions the development of DNA databases is largely based on race, with minorities disproportionately represented, in Jamaica it will be largely based on class. It will be poor, black, inner-city youth, they will say, who would mostly find themselves in that database - the profile of the "many young men, some of whom were innocent", who were being "locked up for extended periods" during the recent state of emergency.

Blunt instrument

We accept that the state of emergency is a blunt instrument to be used sparingly, at a time of crisis, such as is the case in Jamaica - except for the brief period of the emergency when the criminals retreated - where homicides are at 65 per 100,000 and the state is incapable of ensuring the security of its citizens. That threat has not ended despite the absence of Christopher Coke to extend, as some claim he did, a franchise for violence across Jamaica.

The point is Jamaica faces abnormal circumstances and should use all available legal tools to bring the criminality and violence to within "tolerable limits".

Even the most modern and technologically sophisticated crime-detection tools and social interventions can be overwhelmed with the killings taking place at the rate as they have been in Tredegar Park.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.