JCF Cautions Householders

The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) is urging persons to practise general safety at home to guard against robberies and other incidents during the Christmas holiday. 

 Speaking at a recent JIS Think Tank, Head of the JCF’s Corporate Communications Unit, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Stephanie Lindsay, said householders need to be careful of persons turning up at their homes seeking help. 

“We have the seasonal persons who use this time to exploit elderly people and children by turning up at people’s home, pretending to be known to the family or pretending to be soliciting either clothes or food. Some of them are actually working in collaboration with other criminal networks,” she noted. 

 SSP Lindsay said that women are often used by unscrupulous persons to solicit items as they are more likely to be trusted.  

She is advising persons to “not relax their guard, be very cautious if approached and to not open up their doors to these strangers”.  

SSP Lindsay further encourages persons to be careful when discarding the packaging of items they purchase.  

“If you buy a big television or some expensive gadget, we recommend that you cut up the boxes. Don’t just put them down because thieves are checking to see if they can break into your house and steal these new items,” she pointed out. 

Additionally, for persons who are travelling abroad, she is encouraging them to tell their neighbours that they will not be at home. 

“Persons go on holidays, lock up their houses and we are not as neighbourly as they ought to be, so we don’t inform anyone that we are not home. We tend to just leave some lights on, which is a good indication to criminals, who will see a light burning 24/7, that nobody is home,” SSP Lindsay said. 

She is recommending that persons use dusk to dawn lights, which only come on at night and to have someone they trust know that they will be away and to check on the house.