Curfews not just for Jamaica
Published:Wednesday | July 21, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Dennie Quill, Contributor
The news coming out of Miami-Dade County in Florida is that crime has declined by 50 per cent after a curfew law was imposed in May, aimed at keeping youngsters off the streets of crime- infested neighbourhoods like Overtown and Liberty City.
The law has been on the books since 1994 but enforcement waned after similar laws were ruled unconstitutional in other parts of Florida. However, with an escalation in crime, officials in Miami-Dade County decided to impose the law aimed at keeping persons under age 17 off the streets between the hours of 11 and 5 a.m. on weekdays and 12 and 6 a.m. on weekends, unless accompanied by a parent or guardian over age 21. Special passes are handed out to those working or engaged in religious and other activities. Youngsters who violate the curfew are picked up by the police and after four violations parents could be charged $500 and/or sent to counselling.
Parents' responsibilities
Civil rights' advocates voiced their concerns to the law, saying it interfered with people's rights. Curfews are parents' responsibilities, not government's, some of the protesters argued. But now that the results are in, officials in Miami-Dade feel vindicated.
My mind flashed back to our current situation where a limited state of emergency was imposed after the Tivoli Gardens stand-off which presented a danger to public safety. Bear in mind that Jamaica has been struggling with an extremely high crime rate for the last few years. But without the requisite high-power gadgets, sensors, video surveillance and other 21st century crime-fighting technology, we must use what we have, and what we have are emergency powers that allow curfews, cordons and searches. Commendably, the security forces have been reaping rewards of illegal weapons, ammunition and other contraband.
The result is that the criminal network has been crippled and many lives have been saved since the state of emergency, with homicides declining islandwide. But declining crime is not a signal that the war is over. The criminals are still out there with thousands of illegal guns and ammunition at their disposal. The fact that people are detained and released without charge does not make the detention invalid, because under the state of emergency the security forces need only a hint of suspicion to take someone in for questioning.
Greatest deterrent
Of this I am sure, the chance of being stopped and searched is the greatest deterrent to criminals. However, when one is considering the effects of the state of emergency, it is difficult to measure the part deterrence plays in making our streets safer.
Predictably, the state of emergency has stoked the concerns of civil liberties advocates, who are calling for its end because they say it infringes people's rights and it is not to be seen as a crime-fighting strategy. I hope I am right in thinking that none of these people who are loudly calling for an end to the state of emergency would be happy to know that they contributed to a single death.
Even under the state of emergency we are allowed to enjoy the most basic right: to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, so that in the end effective law enforcement and civil rights ought not to be at odds.