Jamaica Fights to Break Grip of Violent Past

[Karl]

Not just happy...but glad you approve!

[Willi]

What tipping point?

Crime under control,? Is it any better? Downtown nuh wild west again?

We know how to fool ourselves.

[Don1]

...and fast-forward 'Big Brother's' presence! ...i.e. integrate data bases such that on our tweeny-weeny island the info on where everyone 'forwards' from birth through 'vankin' and resting place of the remains...is always available.

Registration of Births (& Marriages) - Medical Records - Schools - Criminal Records - Jobs (inclusive of credit reporting agencies, etc.) - financial records - CCTV - Purchases & Sales (POS info) - Ports - Registration of Deaths. We suh-mall bad..."Big Bredda" pan di spat!!!

Man (hor 'oman) si-neeze Big bredda kno!!! Justa few key strokes and (Wah Lul-Lul seh? - "Walla!").

Wi suh-mall han dus shudda bi jus bout crime-free!!!

Karl what you describe here is not Big Brother Surveillance... it's modern administration

Big Brother Police State activity is present when ALL CITIZEN'S ROUTINE COMMUNICATIONS are monitored in REAL TIME and freely available even to low level people like Snowden as well as other countries. I can just imagine Jamaican officialdom with that power... it would be very interesting

You can choose to accept that police state as normal & desirable though... but don't misrepresent it

[Don1]

since morning or before breakfast?

eida way

[Mosiah]

With you on that. Wi not really serious!

[Hortical]

We need to give up a lot of our personal freedoms if we are serious about fighting crime.

[Karl]

Wen Don1 & Islandman step tuh di plate

Deh pon mi second cup of coffee. No tipping point!
When are we going to be serious about fighting crime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...and fast-forward 'Big Brother's' presence! ...i.e. integrate data bases such that on our tweeny-weeny island the info on where everyone 'forwards' from birth through 'vankin' and resting place of the remains...is always available.

Registration of Births (& Marriages) - Medical Records - Schools - Criminal Records - Jobs (inclusive of credit reporting agencies, etc.) - financial records - CCTV - Purchases & Sales (POS info) - Ports - Registration of Deaths. We suh-mall bad..."Big Bredda" pan di spat!!!

Man (hor 'oman) si-neeze Big bredda kno!!! Justa few key strokes and (Wah Lul-Lul seh? - "Walla!").

Wi suh-mall han dus shudda bi jus bout crime-free!!!

[Hortical]

Deh pon mi second cup of coffee. No tipping point!
When are we going to be serious about fighting crime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Gamma]

since morning or before breakfast?

[Don1]

yawn, scratch record, jamaicans are inherently violent people.....

ow much persons yuh murda areddy???

[Mosiah]

"A tipping point was reached, he said, as Jamaicans witnessed the power of Mr. Coke (nicknamed Dudus), who avoided extradition for nearly a year with the help of well-connected political allies, and as bodies piled up from the conflict between his supporters and the authorities."

God bless Hero Peter!

[Hortical]

yawn, scratch record, jamaicans are inherently violent people.....

[Karl]

Jamaica Fights to Break Grip of Violent Past

Andrea Bruce for The New York Times

Girls leaving school for home in the Mountain View neighborhood in Kingston, which used to be notorious for its crime but has become safer, thanks in part to community policing. More Photos »

By DAMIEN CAVE



KINGSTON, Jamaica — Gunshots every night, burned-down businesses and corpses — up to a half-dozen a day — used to define the neighborhood of Mountain View on the eastern hillsides of Kingston, Jamaica’s capital. But not anymore.

Now, the nights are filled with barefoot soccer matches under streetlights or block parties that bring together former rivals from local gangs. No one has been murdered in Mountain View for three years.

“The dark cloud is moving away,” said Keith Nugent, 76, a tailor in the neighborhood who counsels former criminals. “Young people here are beginning to gravitate to a sense of life, and function.”

Jamaica is emerging as a rare bright spot in the hub of the fight against drugs and organized crime that extends across South America and the Caribbean. After more than a decade fighting lawlessness, with limited success, this small island with a reputation for both carefree living and bloodshed has begun to see results. Jamaica’s murder rate, while still high, has fallen by 40 percent since 2009, and a respected study recently reported that “Jamaica has fallen from one of the more corrupt countries in the Americas to one of the least.”

The situation here differs markedly from elsewhere in the region, in Central America and Mexico, where militarized, transnational drug cartels battle among themselves over the main smuggling routes into the United States. But experts and American officials say that as drug traffic shifts back to the Caribbean — because of intensifying enforcement elsewhere — Jamaica has done far more than many other countries to protect itself, by working transparently to strengthen weak institutions while welcoming assistance from outsiders.

“There’s an awful lot of introspection that’s been going on in Jamaica,” said Pamela E. Bridgewater, the American ambassador. As a result, she added, cooperation with the United States and other countries has “risen to a different level.”

Since 2009, no other country has received more American aid from the $203 million Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, yet relatively little of it has been directed toward the muscular, militarized efforts financed elsewhere as part of the war on drugs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/wo...lent-past.html