Letter Published in Jamaica Gleaner June 26, 2010

The Lion's Roar
(Let the Soldiers Patrol)- The full unedited letter published in Jamaica Gleaner, Monday July 26th, 2010








What is the difference between a police and a soldier? Don’t worry; it’s not a trick question and there isn’t a punch line. If you’re like me you, other than the uniform, you too may find it hard to come up with any substantial differences.


I grew up in August Town and twenty years ago when I was just a boy; the description of the area leader was a man who could throw a big stone and hit someone from a distance with much precision. A man who was fearless and surgical his ratchet knife.



Around election time, I would see him come around asking the older folks who they were going to vote for, if one wanted to avoid being slapped, then and one had better have the right answer. The scars on his face would tell his horror stories and you would quickly recognize that he was not one to mess with.

In today’s society, area leaders are in some cases business men with government contracts, influential friends and have access to a barrage of guns. Many of them reside uptown, next to the Joneses, but wield a significant amount of power in downtown neighborhoods.



The point I’m trying to make is that over the last few decades, the sophistication of criminal networks have evolved at an alarming rate but because of our inability to match the rate of change with our crime fighting measures, the murder rate has been climbing an upward slope.

My mother who still lives in August Town tells me she feels safer with the soldiers on patrol, their presence saves lives. This view is the shared will amongst residents of other inner city communities. In a true democracy, the government ought to succumb to the will of the people. I’ll even take it a step further and say that some units of the army should be given special policing powers and their post in the communities should be long term or indefinite.


The current accepted framework is to have the police maintain law and order while the army defends against external aggression. This is the first world model. We should re-examine the system to better suit the country’s needs. The fact that something hasn’t been tried before doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done. The Jamaica I know is creative, we are pioneers, we are not afraid to try something new. We gave the world Reggae, Rastafarianism and the Dutty wine.

Anyway, where are these external forces that the army is training to resist? Could it be the fascist state of Cayman or the evil empire of Barbados? In reality no such state exists, the truth is our enemy lies within and the sooner we accept that fact, the quicker we’ll be able to adjust our crime fighting techniques to better suit our needs.

The answer to my initial question, the difference between the army and the police, is that police recruits receive three months of training at the Police Academy in Spanish Town. This means that if we were to transfer some units of the army into a type of Police Special Forces, it will only cost the tax payers the price of the three months training. From an accounting perspective we would increase the size of the police force without increasing its wage bill because these soldiers would already be on the books.

If it’s acceptable for retired army men to lead the Jamaica Constabulary Force, shouldn’t it be acceptable for them to join the rank and file?

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