Dear Editor,
What chance is there of Jamaica solving its seemingly intractable crime problem if there is such a massive misunderstanding of its causes, as reflected in the Talk Back responses to National Security Minister Peter Bunting's statement that there is no direct correlation between crime and poverty?
Bunting need not have compared crime in Haiti and Jamaica. All he had to do was compare Jamaica today with a poorer pre-Independence Jamaica -- the times of tilley lamps, coal pots, no TV, and telegrams, when the crime rate was low.
Certainly there can be a connection between crime and poverty, especially if you exclude white collar crime. But unchecked urbanisation, the breakdown of family life, proliferation of guns, the massive negative impact of US cultural penetration, desensitisation of criminal acts through media presentations, our dancehall bling culture, clogged court system, and archaic criminal laws are among some of the factors which have contributed to the high crime rate.
Of course, it is very convenient to ignore these factors and blame it on poverty. But these factors have nothing to do with poverty and, perhaps, explain why, when last I checked, rotten-(oil)-rich Trinidad and Tobago had as high a murder rate per capita as 'bruk', International Monetary Fund-controlled Jamaica.
Errol W A Townshend
Ontario, Canada
ewat@rogers.com
So many factors affect crime rate
-->
What chance is there of Jamaica solving its seemingly intractable crime problem if there is such a massive misunderstanding of its causes, as reflected in the Talk Back responses to National Security Minister Peter Bunting's statement that there is no direct correlation between crime and poverty?
Bunting need not have compared crime in Haiti and Jamaica. All he had to do was compare Jamaica today with a poorer pre-Independence Jamaica -- the times of tilley lamps, coal pots, no TV, and telegrams, when the crime rate was low.
Certainly there can be a connection between crime and poverty, especially if you exclude white collar crime. But unchecked urbanisation, the breakdown of family life, proliferation of guns, the massive negative impact of US cultural penetration, desensitisation of criminal acts through media presentations, our dancehall bling culture, clogged court system, and archaic criminal laws are among some of the factors which have contributed to the high crime rate.
Of course, it is very convenient to ignore these factors and blame it on poverty. But these factors have nothing to do with poverty and, perhaps, explain why, when last I checked, rotten-(oil)-rich Trinidad and Tobago had as high a murder rate per capita as 'bruk', International Monetary Fund-controlled Jamaica.
Errol W A Townshend
Ontario, Canada
ewat@rogers.com
So many factors affect crime rate
-->