Building a Better Jamaica

Friday, July 02, 2010
Jamaica Observer

PRIME Minister Bruce Golding says the reduction in crime recorded over the past few weeks needs to continue after the state of public emergency is lifted.

Golding, who was speaking Wednesday night with listeners to his call-in radio programme -- Jamaica House Live -- said that law enforcement needs to thrive without emergency powers.

"We have noticed that there have been significant reductions in the number and level of violent crime since the operations started when the state of emergency was first introduced. While we welcome that, we don't want to draw any conclusions from that yet, because it is very early.

"We are going to have to position our law enforcement efforts in such a way that we can continue to see a reduction of crime, even beyond the level that it is reduced to now, without the necessity of emergency powers, that is the work that has to be done, that is the objective of the strategies that are being pursued by security forces," Golding said.

The Government, Golding said, was monitoring the situation regarding the level of crime under the state of emergency and would be keeping it under review.