Orville Taylor | Let’s be better in 2024

Tomorrow is next year and in a wink 2023 is gone, like a $100 bill in a wholesale. As we did a month ago, we can dust off and reuse our last year’s New Year’s resolution as if they were Christmas decorations. As usual, we say that we are going to be fulfilling the same year-to-year promises and resolutions, that invariably we never seem to get to.

Last year we killed too many of each other and treated too many unfairly. In 2024, we need to hurt fewer and treat more persons as we wish to be treated.

For the average Jamaican, there is still the wait for that political Messiah, who is self-sacrificing and makes the majority of those who may have a vote feel that marking an ‘X’ has a good reason, without having to ask ‘Y’?.

Doubtless, a transformation is needed. For the past decade or so, the consistent opinion of Jamaicans is that elected officials are unworthy of our trust. With the mistrust numbers hovering around 70 per cent, our politicians have a steep and long slope to climb.

Even worse, the distrust connected to politicians on the whole, including the non-elected ones, are in the 80s. This is separate from the recent Don Anderson polls which have indicated that the largest block of voters are those who see no difference between a brown dog and a monkey. Of course there is nothing aesthetically unpleasant about a black dog for this writer moniker ‘Man in Black’.

With almost 40 per cent of the voting public stating, two months before the next local government elections, an unwillingness to vote, it is a sad day for our politics and indeed our democracy.

NOT A FAILED STATE

For the record, the unpatriotic hypocrites, who squander their democratic rights in badmouthing their country; this little rock is not a failed state.

We are the world’s third true democracy, with universal adult suffrage being our right and privilege only after the UK and New Zealand. In this hemisphere, we have had political freedom of one person one vote, before every other nation, including Canada and the USA.

That we can criticise the government, take jabs at the commissioner of police, excoriate the director of public prosecutions and many others, is something which I am hard pressed to find 20 countries where this is possible.

Indeed, as uncomfortable as it is that the prime minister has yet to have his submission to the Integrity Commission certified, or that we still do not know who are the six parliamentarians under investigation for illicit enrichment, the silver lining is that we are a robust democracy and can continue the push for answers without fear that the military will come kicking down our doors.

It is a big deal, that for all of the negatives that we have gone through, Jamaica is still a very healthy democracy.

Never mind the critics, who choose to attack the public servants at the Statistical Institute (STATIN) or Planning Institute (PIOJ). The unemployment data are measured the same way, by the same set of people for the past decades.

Other economic indicators are reasonably good and business confidence is still buoyant. Our unemployment rate is the lowest in our history.

Yet, there have been too many unresolved promises and obligations. Until a government has demonstrated that it has the capacity to put in place and maintain the social infrastructure that consistently reduces the level of homicide and violence on the whole, it will never inspire confidence of the electorate. True, in the short term we want to know that our government using its police resources, with some backing from the military, is able to detect, arrest, charge and provide solid basis for prosecutors to convict offenders.

HARDLINE

In the past year, there have been a lot of tough talking and some decisions, that seem to be taking a hardline against crime. Whatever might be the political optics of these initiatives, there must be a logic behind them.

Increasing the severity of penalties, and implementing minimal sentences, is saying that the scientific evidence is that the lack of these extreme sanctions have a major impact on the proclivity of criminals to carry out their dastardly deeds. Moreover, it implies that the judiciary has been tapping wrists.

The truth is, apart from a few anecdotes, no evidence supports this narrative, because our judges are very competent and are among the finest in the world.

They cannot sentence empty cells. Therefore, the government and the police have to increase their ability to catch crooks.

Social antecedents apart, the most important variable in enhancing policing and deterring criminals is the likelihood of being caught. The severity of the punishment is moot, if not irrelevant, if the would-be offenders believe they can get away with it.

In a democracy, where solutions are non-military, the police must have full capacity to act. The recent addition of mobile units is a big step.

Nonetheless, no amount of technology will substitute for a set of human beings who are motivated by working under conditions of ‘decent work’. This is particularly so for the police.

Perhaps, in a tongue-in-cheek way, the Constabulary Force Act warns that causing disaffection among the ranks is an offence under Section 69.

Inasmuch as it might be geared towards others, the senior ranks of the organisation, like every other employer, keen on getting the best out of its workers, must continue to work towards the ideal of decent work and avoid creating unnecessary discontent.

Two weeks ago, former chief of defence staff of the Jamaica Defence Force and commissioner of police, Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin, published simple but lucid prescriptions for handling the crime and policing dilemma.

Hopefully, this information is shared publicly, to bring the public on board and the powers that be have deeply consulted with him. A large reservoir of knowledge lies in the head of this straight-talking leader, accustomed to guiding stiff-necked seamen and those governed by the aforementioned section of the act.

My new year’s wish is for greater empathy, and let us start with those who protect our democracy. By the way, that include security guards too.

Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.