Martin HenryTHE CHEERFUL buzz and to and froing of Monday morning had given way to a knot of people speaking in soft, tight tones. Something has to be wrong. No excitement.
The pain was palpable. What is it? Alethia Bryce is dead. Stabbed to death. She and her mother in their Hope Pastures home. The empty work station which prompted the mid-morning enquiry call isn't going to be filled ever again by this vibrant young woman. Murder has savagely come home to the Bryces and to the community of the University of Technology.
DISBELIEF
Shock, disbelief, helplessness - and tears. Too numb for anger. This dreadful scene has repeated itself over 800 times already this year. In the manner of humans everywhere in the face of death irrevocable, final, and in this case sudden, drastic and without fathomable reason, people turn to eulogising.
This was the young woman, vibrant and alive, at the University annual staff retreat only last Thursday. Who keeps a Dean's office organised and moving. Who cares for aged parents and dependent relatives. Who had such a bright professional future, savagely cut short.
Who was last year in Cuba with a university group on study tour. Cuba where members of the tour party walked through 'inner-city' Havana at midnight without fear. Cuba where to be murdered in the sanctuary of one's home is almost unimaginable.
BLACK MONDAY
There are few places on earth not at war where the sense of the lack of personal safety can match or exceed Jamaica. Towards the end of Black Monday, black for those close to Alethia, her mother and her family, Minister of Information Burchell Whiteman emerged from Cabinet with an announcement for the restoration of public order. Where have you been Minister and Government these 15 years in office? Alethia was a 15-year-old third former, perhaps as afraid of being a victim of crime as teenagers are today, when this administration first came to power.
With the national murder rate exceeding three per day, every day is a black day, or, perhaps better, a red day, red with blood and pain and grief, for hundreds of Jamaicans. On Red Monday, Spanish Town community leader 'Bubba' was buried with full honours.
COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP
Alternative community leadership is flourishing in the public order void left by government, present and past, which has shamefully abdicated its primary responsibility of maintaining law and order.
The One Order organisation has embarked on an ambitious programme of alternative 'law and order', alternative development and alternative financing. Like other military powers, it will brook no opposition and will resort to force of arms to impose its will and its way. Public disorder, petty lawlessness, breeds hard crime.
BROKEN WINDOW THEORY
In 1982, James Wilson and George Kelling set out their common sense "broken window and crime" theory. If a single broken window is left unrepaired, others will soon be broken and an entire neighbourhood becomes disorderly and rundown.
The information spokesman for the Government is twice Alethia's age and can attest from experience to the literal, physical reality of the Wilson/Kelling theory. Some of the toughest, most crime-ridden urban spaces were once prime residential areas, like the various "towns" of lower St. Andrew and the parish of Kingston which have been allowed to descend into physical decay and social disorder.
The process moves to Portmore and this newspaper recently carried a letter on the 'ghettofication of Portmore'. Another major centre of crime is the public housing schemes of the garrisons. A third key centre is the squatter communities.
PRAISE
This is neither speculation nor prejudice. The Gleaner's editorial of Tuesday (August 10) was praising the analysis of crime data by the St. James Police Division.
The paper on the same day carried a letter from an urban planner, 'Planning urban space to keep out crime'. At the level of metaphor, the broken window theory says law and order breaks down when serious attention is not given to misdemeanours.
Nobel laureate (in Economics, not Criminology) Gary Becker, among others, has shown how criminals calculate the cost of crime to them. When costs are low, more risks are taken. Hard crime feeds on unpunished, soft lawbreaking and the whole thing escalates out of control.
The amazingly low clear-up rate for even the hardest categories of crime like murder just encourages criminals. Nearly all the windows are broken.
HUGE TASK
It is going to be a huge task to restore public order and the usual touch and run approach of the Government will not work. There is a whole array of legal instruments available.
We don't need any new laws. We have the old Towns and Communities Act. We have the anti-litter law, the Noise Abatement Act, zoning laws, traffic laws, vending laws, building laws, and more. Apply them.
Martin Henry is a communication specialist.
