Tackling murder in Jamaica

Gleaner Article: Editorial

The Gleaner's Editorial of May 3, 2016 described Minister of National Security Bobby Montague "calling for the resumption of hanging" as "tried and tested to incite popular emotions", and I would add unconstitutional since it is the prerogative of the DPP to make such a call based on crimes punishable by death.

Since the late 1970s, over 40,000 Jamaicans have been murdered and Amnesty International reports that there are "at least seven" persons known to be under sentence of death by the end of 2011. The last execution in Jamaica by hanging was in 1988. Clearly, the problem lies not in the courts, but the investigative arm of our police force and its inability to arrest persons who are involved in aggravated murder.

Second, the resumption of hanging cannot be a deterrent, since there has been a cultural shift in regards to the fear of death among most persons who would commit murder. It is like telling a suicide terrorist that you will hang him/her if caught. In most conflicts, we often hear of persons who have expressed no fear of death as long as they had eliminated their victim/s. We are living in a culture that denies death as expressed in the social manifestation of nine-nights, grave digging ceremonies, "bling" funerals and unconventional tomb structures.

May 5, 2016 

 

TRANSFORM GHETTO CAPITAL

To solve Jamaica's high murder rate, our nation and, in particular the inner city communities, need a shake-up. This requires political will. Jamaica is also perhaps the only country in the world where its capital is mostly ghetto. The parish of Kingston needs an infusion of middle- and upper-class residential areas for its transformation.

At our educational level, the elementary, primary and secondary schools need to not only have instructional education, but that of formation as set out in the values and attitudes agenda. We have over the last 30 years been producing citizens who are crass, undisciplined, uneducated and lacking in patriotic allegiance to Jamaica.

Dudley C. McLean II

Mandeville, Manchester

Question; How can one know their rights and responsibilities as a citizens of a country.

Contributor:

Shana-Kay Porter

4th Year History and Social Studies Student

Bethlehem Moravian College

 

Do you believe that citizenship education should be taught in a practical manner?

A new way of teaching citizenship education

The introduction and continuance in schools of a democratic culture forbid dogmatism in any kind of civics education. The methods and approaches chosen are those based on discussion among pupils and between pupils and teachers, and make provision for children and young people to speak and express themselves. Modes of expression may be varied: in addition to oral exchanges, drawings, songs, poems, different kinds of written material are excellent instruments for reflection on citizenship, democracy, justice, freedom and peace.

In a democracy, citizenship education seeks to educate citizens who will be free to make their own judgments and hold their own convictions. Compliance with existing laws should not prevent citizens from seeking and planning better and ever more just laws. Respect for law, which is one of the objectives of civics education, calls not for blind submission to rules and laws already passed but the ability to participate in drawing them up.

One of the practical tasks of citizenship education is therefore to look at the rules governing a school, improve them and reformulate them.

The values transmitted by citizenship education are not dogmatic principles laid down once and for all. A living culture calls for the creation of new values, although they should all be judged by the criterion of respect for others and for human dignity.

Thus, with regard to the laws and values accepted by an entire social group, citizenship education can in no way be a catalogue of set questions and answers. Citizenship education should be the forum which gives rise to and nurtures a genuine culture of discussion. Whatever the problem posed, such as the ongoing development of humanity or the stability of the rule of law, an exchange of ideas, notions, judgments and individual opinions is necessary. Even among young children, dialogue of this kind is possible.

Citizenship education needs also to be taught in ways that bring out the ever-constant link between knowledge and practice.

The interaction between concepts and action gradually produces the ability to think in terms of values and to refer to them. Values are universal when they concern human rights: for example, the values of liberty, dignity, solidarity and tolerance. As they are firmly anchored and promoted in different cultures they can also concern a region of the world or even a special country, nation or religion. All should be made the subject of discussion and reflection and be studied in each course of citizenship education.
In other words, citizenship education is based on knowledge, practice and values that constantly interact. To be precise, let us say that awareness of the necessary reference to values gradually gives rise to practices and action which are themselves related to knowledge and skills about human rights and the institutions that regulate life in society. Pupils benefiting in this way from citizenship education learn step by step that citizenship unfolds and develops in a society imbued with values and in the human community as a whole.

Contributor:

Toyodoor Swaby

4th Year History and Social Studies Student

Bethlehem Moravian College