Mark Beckford, Staff Reporter

Children at play in Canaan Heights, Clarendon, which is affected by widespread poverty and job shortages. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

Silent lips are stifling the efforts of the Clarendon police to crush crime in the central Jamaica parish.

Superintendent Radcliffe Lewis, the head of police there, in a recent interview with The Gleaner, said information gathering had been compromised by residents who refuse to rat out criminals.

"Our main problem is that we not getting enough intelligence ... . We're not getting any information to where the guns are. We will get the information to where the people are, but when we take them in, we have to release them because you don't have any evidence," he said.

The Clarendon crime chief revealed that reprisal killings contributed significantly to overall homicide.

Cause of homicides

"Reprisal shootings, gang warfare the guns-for-drugs trade and, to a lesser extent, I term it raw criminality, but most of our murders are drugs, gang and reprisal shootings," the superintendent said.

Lewis called on residents to play their role in policing themselves by interfacing with the constabulary. He acknowledged that residents might not trust the police, but pointed to other police agencies to which they could provide info.

"The people know who, but I guess they don't trust some of the police. That's why they're not giving intelligence, and rightfully so, because there are police who are criminals and policemen who give away information, (but) you must can find a policeman who you can trust," the impassioned policeman reasoned.

mark.beckford@gleanerjm.com

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