Jamaicans are rightly incensed over the recent wave of abductions and murder of children, symbolised by the discovery of the body of a little girl believed to be that of 11-year-old Ananda Dean and the alleged sexual assault and death of a nine-month-old baby.

Indeed, the headlines of this newspaper in recent days are emblematic of the horror and disgust felt by people. On Monday, we declared what happened to that baby in Arnett Gardens to have been 'savage'. Yesterday, we summed up political and sector leaders to be 'outraged' by recent events.

Yet, we have been here before; that 57 children have been murdered in Jamaica so far this year, to be brutally frank, is not particularly new. As with the murder numbers generally - there are about 1,600 homicides in Jamaica each year and the country's murder rate is more than 60 per 100,000 - the slaughter of children has been on the rise for a long time.

Of course, at times when the killings are particularly brutish, as this week's discovery of a little girl's body without a head, or when the homicides are in a spate, there is this national outcry; this demand for something to be done. Anything! Nothing particularly defined.

Hellish

Things, however, soon settle. The environment has become so hellish that people quickly adjust and accommodate to a new and higher threshold for outrage.

Put another way, Jamaica, as a society, has to a significant degree, become callous to and callused by murder. Or, when people feel vulnerable, they seek to privatise solutions; those, at least, who can afford to. There is the retreat to gated communities, SUVs with a wide range of security mechanisms, and so on.

All this, in part, speaks to a failure of community and a failure of leadership; an inability to develop a coherent national agenda to which there is a broad national buy-in. Another way, perhaps, to look at it, is Jamaica reaping the whirlwind of the extremes in competitive national politics: the slaying of little children, the extreme damage to the environment from Hurricane Gustav, or Mayor McKenzie's difficulty at imposing order among vendors in Half-Way Tree square.

No side is willing to take a stand on anything for fear that it is embraced by the other in the pursuit of power. The upshot is a culture of permissiveness, and what manifests itself, ultimately, is a societal dysfunction.

Rules

The behaviour limits itself to no particular social group or class. The differences are in specifics of action and tone of articulation.

So, the rich and well-to-do build homes in watersheds without due cognisance to environmental issues. Rules are not enforced because those in breach might have power. The effect shows later in the environmental disaster.

Squatters on precarious hillsides, on river banks or flood plains cannot be upset because they account for too many votes, as do the vendors who disregard the rules and take over Half Way Tree or King Street, and so on.

There are many parts to fixing the kind of behaviour that so scandalises Jamaica at this time. They all, however, start with leadership that has a strong conviction; a willingness to exercise power to a specific end and, if necessary, for only a short time. Maybe those who now hold office can find this conviction.

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