Dennie Quill, Contributor

Some of you may be familiar with an NBC Dateline programme on television called 'To catch a predator'. NBC, the American network, has joined forces with a watchdog group called Perverted Justice, volunteers, and the police to catch sexual predators. Here is how it works.

NBC goes undercover with host Chris Hansen. For a couple days the team moves into an area and rents a house that has been outfitted with hidden cameras. The volunteers posing as 12 to 14-year-olds enter chat rooms and wait to be contacted.

Undercover house

Once someone expresses a desire to have sex, the decoy pretending that she is home alone invites him to the undercover house. Usually they arrive with condoms, Viagra and other paraphernalia. The predator is soon confronted by Hansen and his camera crew and presented with the transcript of his sexually explicit Internet chat. As he leaves the house the cops arrest him.

These sting operations have been ongoing for three years and have been conducted in eight states. More than 200 men have been arrested so far. The authorities in Kentucky say men still go to chat rooms trawling for sex with underage children, but because of the series they are afraid of venturing out, with the result that the children of that state are much safer.

Pending lawsuit

I mention 'To catch a predator' for two reasons. Many onlookers have criticised the series, calling it entrapment. And there is a lawsuit pending from the relative of a suspect who committed suicide. Here is an example of the community coming together to solve crime. The media, non-government organisation and the police have pooled their resources to fight the scourge of computer sex crimes which pose a grave threat to America's children. We could learn some lessons from this template.

The second reason for citing this series is to demonstrate the kind of creativity which law enforcement must use in fighting crime. The internal terrorism being experienced in Jamaica today requires such creativity. Recently, more than 20 persons were reportedly killed in tribal warfare in Central Kingston. It could be that one firearm was used to kill all the victims but it is more likely that multiple weapons were involved.

This is a small community and one cannot understand why the police did not blanket the area and recover those guns. Last week I saw the commissioner saying on television that it was not OK to go into a community after a flare-up and leave the men with their guns after things had cooled down. I was thinking that too, only thing is I have no means of doing anything about it. But surely, the commissioner does.

What happens in Central Kingston is repeated in other communities such as Mountain View Avenue, August Town/Papine, Red Hills Road, Olympic Gardens, etc. Don't these criminals use telephones? Why aren't the police taping their conversations? Is there no GPS System to track their movements? If security guards can establish elaborate systems to recover stolen vehicles, why have the police been so ineffective in trapping car thieves? The point I am making is that our security forces have been fighting crime in the same manner for 30 years with disastrous results.

Lack of imagination

When criminals force persons to flee their inner-city homes, shouldn't the police move into those homes and prevent them from reaping the benefit of their crime? The local police lack the imagination and creativity, even with limited resources, to garner intelligence and take the fight to the criminals and beat them at their game. The imported British officers have made no impact whatever.

Low morale

In last week's column I referred to the low morale in the police force and what I perceived as a general lack of cohesion between the ex-army men who top the hierarchy and members of the JCF. What I failed to mention then is the rather uncomfortable situation of a colonel falling higher in the hierarchy than a rear admiral.

I refer, of course, to Colonel Trevor MacMillan being the minister of national security and the rear admiral being the commissioner. If you know anything about the lines of demarcation in the military you will understand how the commissioner must feel every time he has to report to the colonel. I don't see it working.

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