I was reading the This day in our past feature in your paper and was deeply moved by former Prime Minister Alexander Bustamante's passionate declaration that law and order would be maintained in Jamaica if he had to sacrifice his own life to accomplish it.

Why is it that there is no one in the 21st century who seems willing to lay down his/her life for what he or she believes in? Why has the crime rate sky-rocketed over the years? My parents tell me of days gone by when they could sleep with doors and windows open without fear and when everyone was a good neighbour and looked out for each other.

Today, everyone is turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to crime. We seem to be taking the term 'see and blind, hear and deaf' too seriously. The Neighbourhood Watch programme is pointless in our communities if we are watching the crimes and latching our mouths. If the murder rate continues its steady climb, I fear Jamaica will cease to exist as a nation and become only a beautiful garden with no one to tend it.

Everybody's business

I recall that stemming the crime rate was paramount on the Jamaica Labour Party's campaign list. They seem to have put it on the back burner while every day news of the murders is enough to send you to Bellevue. While I understand that crime and violence is everybody's business, I sense nonchalance from the Government about the seriousness of this issue. If enough attention was given to law and order, then we wouldn't have to be so concerned about the severe strain violence is creating on our hospitals' resources and gaps in the budget.

If each of us were as passionate as Bustamante was about law and order, we would certainly have more national heroes today and crime and violence would be a thing of the past.

I am, etc.,

L. COLEEN CLARKE

Montego Bay

St James