Garwin Davis, Staff Reporter
JAMAICANS seen interacting with tourists on the streets of the island's resort towns are often accosted and accused of visitor harassment by over-zealous security officers, residents of those areas claim.
The action by the security officers, residents of places such as Ocho Rios and Montego Bay claim, has resulted in several innocent people being falsely arrested and sent to jail.
"I was searched and boxed," said Anthony Greene, a resident of Discovery Bay, St. Ann, adding that all he was doing was to show an overseas couple where to find a restaurant in Ocho Rios.
"It was only when some people got involved that the officers backed off," he said.
That incident reportedly occurred a few weeks ago.
"Some of our officers do not hesitate to lock up honest citizens for talking to tourists," explained Jason Brown, president of the Ocho Rios Citizens Association. "The security officers, manning our streets, are assuming that everyone that interacts with a tourist is either a pimp or a tout, which is wrong. Just the other day we had to intervene on behalf of a young man who was accused by the police of harassing a visitor when all he was doing was answering questions posed to him by the tourist."
Mr. Brown said that the police were telling residents that they needed a badge to be able to converse with visitors and were aggressively targeting those people who didn't. The Sunday Gleaner could not confirm that claim.
"If this is the law, it needs revisiting," he said. "Police officers need to exercise their discretion and realise that not everyone that interacts with a visitor is a criminal."
Residents claimed that tourists have had to, on occasions, rescue suspects, sometimes even going to the police station to secure their release.
"It is a very serious problem," said Patrick Murdock, a Montego Bay businessman. "Some of these officers are not properly trained and yet they are given the power of arrest. Once a person stops to talk to a tourist, that person runs the risk of either being arrested or publicly humiliated."
Minister of Tourism and Sport, Portia Simpson Miller stopped short of accusing the resort security officers of wrongdoing.
"What I do know is that if a policeman sees a visitor and a local person acting in a suspicious way, then he has to do something," the Minister said. "Again, we have to understand that tourist harassment is a serious problem and is something we have to curtail. We cannot just protect the personal interest of a few at the expense of the nation."
Carl Miller, the Government's appointed anti-harassment czar, said that there were no laws prohibiting a resident from talking to a visitor. According to him, over-zealousness on the part of a few officers can be a problem, but noted that sometimes it was just a matter of making a judgement call.
"It is a very difficult job working the streets of a resort town," he said. "I don't think that the problem is as widespread as it is made out to be, but I can promise you that if there is something we need to correct, we will."
