ONE OF the touted foreign cops brought in to fight crime and improve the image of the Jamaica Constabulary Force has admitted that a wide gulf remains between the law-enforcement agencies and most Jamaicans.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Les Green, head of the Major Investigation Task Force (MIT), said a lack of trust between Jamaicans and the police continues to stifle the efforts of the police to crush crime and apprehend criminals.

He said in his experience, individuals are usually willing to come forward, despite it being said that there is a culture of silence in Jamaica; however, they often fail to do so because of a lack of trust in the police force.

"Usually, there is a willingness to come forward, (however), there is no trust or confidence necessarily in the local officers, which is the problem, and I haven't seen a lot of change in terms of that," Green said.

Local police have long complained about the problem of witnesses being afraid to come forward to give statements, or to testify in court. As a result, they frequently have difficulty proving their case and have watched people they know to be guilty walk free.

With a slew of crime-fighting initiatives, including Crime Stop, Operation Kingfish, and the Witness Protection Programme, law enforcers continue to hope that potential witnesses might feel more comfortable to give evidence.

While many of these programmes have produced some success, the police are still worried about the number of crimes that go unsolved.

More could be achieved

Coordinator for Crime Stop, Prudence Gentles, admitted that despite the organisation's success in helping the police to make more than 19,000 arrests over the last 20 years, much more could have been achieved if Jamaicans were willing to come forward.

Gentles further said that dancehall artistes have helped to perpetuate the 'informer fi dead' culture, with many songs striking fear into the hearts of would-be witnesses about talking to the police.

She said with dancehall music and artistes touting and glorifying the gun and, in turn, lambasting and degrading 'informers', the society often perceives people who are willing to give information to police as snitches or people worthy of death.

But is this fear unfoun-ded? It would appear that to be labelled an informer in Jamaica is often a death sentence.

Take, for example, the 2005 killing of 23-year-old Linval Thompson, an accounting clerk at First Global Financial Services. He was murdered after he testified in a murder trial about the April 2001 killing of his mother and stepfather.

Four men were convicted for the murder of the two, but the sweet taste of victory turned sour days later as Thompson was murdered on his way to work at the intersection of Trafalgar and Hope roads in St Andrew. The rest of his family went into hiding.

In 2006, Leslie Brown, 79, of Glendevon, St James, was murdered after being labelled an informer, following a triple murder which had taken place a few days before in the area.

Silent heroes

But the Crime Stop head continues to argue that the upside to programmes, such as the one she leads, and Operation Kingfish, is that individuals are allowed the privilege of becoming "silent heroes".

Crime Stop has always publicised that it does not use69, caller ID, or any of the other modern features, which allow for the identification of persons who provide information.

According to Gentles, all Jamaicans must take a personal and vested interest in crime solving, as the police alone cannot do it.

"If your mother was killed, would you like all the people who knew who killed her to keep silent, or would you like them to go forward to the police?" Gentles asked. "This is what we need to do. We need to personalise it and realise that crime can affect us, and so we need to do everything in our power to stop it."

She added: "We are the answer. Jamaicans don't understand how powerful they are. We have the power to stop it (crime) by just giving information to the police."

athalia.reynolds@gleanerjm.com