Good police-community relation key to addressing crime – Brown

Saffrey Brown, project director at Project STAR, says building good police-community relations with citizens in volatile communities is one of the strategies to reduce crime and violence.

Brown made the point while addressing a forum titled: ‘Public Attitudes About Crime and Security in Jamaica: Findings from the Americas Barometer Survey’, which was held recently at The University of the West Indies regional headquarters, Mona campus.

She concurred with the findings of the survey, which stated that eight in every 10 Jamaicans believe that closer police-community relations could help to reduce crime.

“This [police] community building relations, if better supported by local communities, by NGOs, civil society organisations and other agents of the state, could strengthen the approach to safety, security and, invariably, result in a reduction of crime and exposure to crime,” she said.

The Project STAR director informed the gathering that the survey’s findings were in keeping with what was happening on the ground in Jamaica.

”We are aware that if you build trust [between the police and the community], you can be more targeted in your strategies,” Brown said.

Citing an example of how this trust could materialise, she shared that in 2020 the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) worked with the police on the COVID-19 Respond Fund and over a three- to four-month period, the police assisted in delivering food packages to vulnerable communities. During that period, the police were able to build relations with the residents in the communities.

“One constable indicated, in handing out packages in a community in Spanish Town, that it was the first time he had been walking the community and meeting the residents although he had been assigned there six months before,” Brown said. She noted that prior to that exercise, he primarily went into the community to“extract” and leave.

In addition, she said in east downtown Kingston, personnel from the Jamaica Constabulary Force Citizens and Safety Branch had been building relations with community members and this had led to positive engagement with them.

She added that there has to be a mindset change across the board in terms of how citizens are valued, and how risks are perceived versus actual risks.

“But overall as it relates to perception versus reality, both are important indicators of the level of vulnerability faced by communities. Both must be measured because together they give us a clearer picture of where things are, and how people feel within the context of their own safety and overall quality of life,” she said.

The Americas Barometer is a regional survey carried out by the Latin American Public Opinion Project Lab based in Vanderbilt University and funded by the USAID. The study also found that there is a desire for stronger police-community relations, with 62 per cent of Jamaicans expressing a willingness to work with the police to reduce crime.