Duckenfield decline sparks fear of crime surge
Published:Monday | November 4, 2019 | 12:00 AM
Exhausted from cutting grass all morning, 33-year-old Lorden Deans sat down on the sidewalk in front of a Cash Pot outlet, his weed whacker idle in front of him, as he scanned the empty roadway that leads to Golden Grove Sugar Estate.
The stretch of road would normally be bustling with activity, but last Wednesday, it was a desolate, with the occasional motor car emerging to break the cold silence.
Deans, who was employed as a field worker at the estate, is concerned that with hundreds, mainly men, now laid off and out of work, the quiet district of Duckenfield could see a spike in crime.
“We don’t have crime in Duckenfield. The people here still sleep with windows and doors open and worry about nothing at all. But I am worried all this could change,” said Deans.
The Golden Grove Sugar Estate, owned by the Seprod Group, shuttered operations in July because its bottom line had been burdened by debt of more than $3 billion all told. Seprod has run Golden Grove since 2009.
Data from the Jamaica Constabulary Force Periodic Serious and Violent Crimes Review indicate that the parish of St Thomas is experiencing a 23 per cent reduction in murders for the period January 1, 2019 to October 31, 2019.
The parish has recorded 20 murders for the period under review, as against the 26 over the corresponding period in 2018. Shootings, however, have skyrocketed by 150 per cent, from 12 in 2018 to 30 this year up to October 31. Robberies and break-ins have also climbed more than 60 per cent during the period.
Fear for at-risk youth
While serious crimes have not afflicted Duckenfield significantly so far, Deans is among several residents who remain fearful that at-risk young men will become more vulnerable when they are jobless and hopeless.
Business operator Everol Nicholson agrees with Deans that crime could set root and spread among communities throughout the sugar belt.
“Basically, everybody knows each other here. Duckenfield is a small village, and that’s why maybe we see no crime happening in here, but it could happen. We don’t really have strangers coming in, and that’s also part of it, too,” said Nicholson, who is widely known as ‘Fuzzy’.
The businessman said further that unemployment and its ills might change the dynamics of the community because “man will get hungry”.
“From a man cyaan get food, him will go cut your banana round the back a you house. Him will start move anything him see to move to go sell it because he wants money,” Nicholson said.
Meanwhile, head of the St Thomas Police Division, Superintendent Marlene Wilson-Christie, told The Gleaner that she is optimistic that crime will not surge and has promised to pay closer attention to Duckenfield, in particular.
“We are anticipating that problems can occur and we are putting all the necessary measures in place to prevent that happening. This includes increasing our patrols to make sure the police presence will act as a deterrent,” Wilson-Christie said.