Government declares another State of Emergency

The government has declared another State of Public Emergency.
 
Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who's also the Minister of Defence, made the announcement late this morning during a press conference held at Jamaica House.

The areas to be incorporated in this security measure include several communities across three police divisions in the corporate area, as well as parts of comemrcial districts.

They are Kingston Central, Kingston Western, and the St Andrew South police divisions.

Holness in making the announcement, declared that the measure became necessary because the capacity of the force was limited at this time to deal with the high levels of criminal activity. 

”The government considers the crime situation in these areas to be over and above the capacity of existing law enforcement. The objective is therefore to degrqade and erode the capacity of criminal organizations to operate and control these spaces to break and indeed challenge the culture of lawless that exits in some communities in these areas and ultimately to provide the space in which law abiding citizens and regular policing can work together to provide peace and harmony in these areas.

He also responded to questions about whether to declare a national State of Emergency, instead of several States of Emergency in different communities.

”We had at no stage contemplated an island wide SOE because if you are going to use the state of emergency as a knee jerk response, then you could contemplate an islandwide SOE.......but the state of emergency also gives you powers that you can use for the long term degrading of the capacity of a threat. We are using it for the erosion of capabilities and the degrading of the capacity of what we consider to be long term well entrenched threats,” he said