http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20040801/focus/focus3.html

Kevin O'Brien Chang, Contributor

WHEN HIV was first discovered in the mid 1980s Caribbean countries reacted in different ways. Haiti lacked the resources to take any preventative measures.

Jamaica, like most places, talked of 'making people more aware' and ran a few public education campaigns. Cuba immediately quarantined all known AIDS sufferers. Human rights groups condemned this move, which as ever had no effect on Fidel Castro.

Today only sub-Saharan Africa has higher HIV infection rates than the Caribbean. Poor Haiti is being devastated by the disease. Our authorities claim the problem is under control, but Jamaica's infection rate is still very high by world standards and AIDS consumes a large part of our health budget. Cuba has largely escaped the disease.

WORLD'S MOST EFFECTIVE

Now I consider myself a liberal at heart in most senses of the word. Modern democracy, after all, is based on the British tradition of the inviolability of every individual's rights. So in theory I could never defend the Cuban policy of forcibly confining anyone discovered to be suffering from AIDS. Yet it's an undeniable fact that Cuba's HIV programme has been the world's most effective in preventing the spread of the disease.

I can already hear the 'slippery slope' and 'too high a price' and 'the end cannot justify the means' and 'if one person's rights are abused all are at risk' clichés. Indeed I've often spouted them myself. But of late I'm finding myself less moved by bleeding heart arguments and also less dismissive of the 'you can't make omelettes without breaking eggs' school of thought.

TRANSFORMATION

Maybe the dreaded 'young radical to old conservative' transformation is already taking place in my brain. Or perhaps it's the chilling fact that with murders up almost 50 per cent to date, Jamaica is on course to this year surpass South Africa and Colombia as the world's most murderous country.

I'm no world traveller, but in the last decade I've been to Cuba, Britain, the US, Canada, China, Singapore, Japan, and Thailand. And to me the biggest difference between any of these countries and Jamaica was that in all of them I could walk around and feel safe, while here at home I cannot. I felt especially bitter about this in Cuba and China.

How is it, I asked myself, that I could stroll without fear in these supposedly 'unfree' countries while to go on foot anywhere in Kingston other than on Knutsford Boulevard is to risk being robbed and maybe murdered?

Something is sadly wrong with this country when visiting a police state dictatorship like Cuba can feel, in personal safety terms, a bit like being let out of jail.

DEMOCRATIC TRADITION

Now we Jamaicans can justifiably be proud of our 40 year unbroken democratic tradition, our free press, our adherence to the rule of law, and our almost first world life expectancy. But increasingly, I find myself wondering if a country can be considered even a limited success when you feel at risk if you let down your guard for even a moment. And I can only imagine how much worse it is for women.

To put things in perspective, since the Palestinian Intifada began in 2000 about 3,600 Israelis and Palestinians have been killed. Over this same period over 4,800 Jamaicans have been murdered. Israel contains 6.4 million people, Palestine 3.5 million and Jamaica 2.5 million. If Palestine is in 'crisis', where does that leave this country?

Last week I had a discussion about the crime problem with a police friend in Mobay. (He is a very intelligent and well-spoken 10 year plus constable who I cannot believe has not been promoted to a higher rank. I don't know the procedure for police promotions but something is not right when such a smart and articulate man has been left to stagnate while I see far less capable men in more senior positions. He is a wasted, or at least vastly under-utilised, resource.)

HIGH CRIME RATE

He argued thus. "The reason we have a high crime rate is simple. We are trying to use police procedures designed for an educated place like England in a country where most men cannot even read and write properly.

"We basically have too much freedom here, or at least more than we can handle right now. Yes, we need to educate the people. But that is a 20 year project. We need to take some firm steps to deal with the criminals out there now.

"I believe you have to have measures to prevent police abuse. But this human rights foolishness has gone too far. It's like we police now have to fight crime with one hand behind our back. And you can see the result. Murders are up 50 per cent this year. Look what has happened in Spanish Town since we got soft. Those things couldn't go on when Renato was around."

REPEAT OFFENDERS

"The most important thing right now is to get the repeat offenders off the street. Ninety percent of the men I arrest have been in jail before. Some of them have more than 25 previous convictions. We need a three strikes and you're out law like they have in America ­ if you commit three violent crimes you go to jail for life.

If we need more prisons, let's build them. But this revolving door thing is not working. Plus we need a deportee monitoring system. We have to put a lot of other measures in place. But those would at least be a start."

Normally I would condemn such talk as racist and elitist. But this is a black man born in very poor circumstances who has reached where he is by hard work, a policeman on front line duty who sees the belly of the beast up close everyday. And our current crime prevention programs are definitely not working. So I shut my mouth and thought about what he said. Is there such a thing as too much freedom?