MOST JAMAICANS support the idea of crime-fighting soldiers and believe that there should be a merger between the army and the police force, a recent poll suggested.
The poll, conducted by Don Anderson on behalf of The Jamaica Gleaner, showed that over 81 per cent of some 1,000 respondents in an islandwide poll strongly support more army intervention in crime fighting.
They also believe soldiers should be allowed to act more independently of the police to increase the physical presence of the security forces in hedging crime. Another 75 per cent of this sample felt that it was a good idea to merge the two security arms.
The sample of respondents was a nationally representative one of persons 18 years and over. The interviews were conducted between October 18-November 8, 2005. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.2 per cent.
Early this month, Rear Admiral, Hardley Lewin, chief of staff of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), pointed out that his soldiers were uncomfortably constrained by the requirement that they must perform certain policing duties only if accompanied by members of the police force.
EMPOWERING TROOPS
He was also in support of a Government proposal to amend Section 9 (3) of the Defence Act to grant JDF troops power to "search, apprehend and detain," on their own. Those persons would be handed over to the police as soon as possible
thereafter.
The poll also found that just under half of the respondents, 44.7 per cent, rank Government's crime-fighting efforts as the least successful of all their initiatives of the governing People's National Party.
