Stop the deadly vicious circle of violence

Dear Prime Minister Golding,

In the election manifesto you declared that ”making the nation safe and secure is our most urgent priority“. You promised to implement several measures that could have an impact on the high levels of police killings and impunity, including pledges to create an independent investigative body and a special prosecutor for abuses by police. We appreciate that your government has already started to fulfil some of those election promises by introducing new pieces of legislation on an investigative body to investigate police abuses and special coroners to investigate extrajudicial executions.

But still, Jamaica has one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world. The Jamaican police, whose motto is ”to serve and protect“ have long contributed to that violence by being responsible for one of the highest rates of killings by police in the world. Caught between criminal gangs and violent policing methods, especially poor and underpriviliged people are denied access to effective state protection of their rights to life and security.

Therefore we ask for

• the immediate reduction of homicides and police killings in inner-cities;
• the immediate reduction of lethal violence and excessive use of force by the Jamaican Constibulary Force (JCF);
• reforms to the JCF to create a police force that is representative, responsive and accountable to all the community and respect and protect human rights;