Mark Titus, Enterprise Reporter

While Police Commissioner Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin says there will be no reluctance on the part of police to use deadly force when necessary, he is adamant that community-based policing will be one of his main tools in reining in lawlessness across the island.

"I expect community police officers, like any other officer, to arrest offenders where they are detected," Lewin said yesterday while giving the main address at the official launch of the roll-out of community-based policing at Newland in Portmore, St Catherine.

"Where there is justifiable reason to use deadly force, I expect it to be used and used effectively."

Lewin said that, though the journey to deliver a better style of policing to the people of Jamaica would take a long time to travel, it was a journey that could see quick results.

Engaging communities

Community policing is considered a means of engaging communities so residents' level of confidence in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) can be raised. The strategy was among four areas of crime fighting named by the commissioner which should reduce the scourge of crime.

Some 38 communities, across the island's 19 police divisions, have been identified for the establishment of safety and security committees which will consist of members of the JCF, the Social Development Commission and members of the respective districts.

Two communities in each division will be selected for phase one of the programme, with an incremental increase of at least 38 additional communities, each successive year, as resources permit.

Senator Arthur Williams, state minister in the Ministry of National Security, said the roll-out was the most important initiative in the history of the JCF and described as 'frightening' the possibility of the present trend of killings continuing, and thus possibly surpassing the 2005 record of 1,674 murders.

Member of Parliament for the South St Catherine constituency, Fitz Jackson, told those in attendance that, if there was ever a time for the people to take back the communities, it was now.

"We are obliged to make community policing work for the benefit of the residents of the communities of Jamaica," Jackson noted, "but community policing is going to work only if there is one firm foundation, and that foundation is respect."

mark.titus@gleanerjm.com