JCF Ramps Up Public Safety Measures for Christmas Season

The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) will be deploying rapid-response teams across major commercial hubs and high-traffic corridors to ensure public safety and security during the festive period.

The activities of these teams will be buttressed by motorcycle patrols and JamaicaEye surveillance.

Speaking at a recent Jamaica Information Service (JIS) Think Tank, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) assigned to the Strategic Operations Portfolio and the Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch, Dr. Gary McKenzie, said that the Christmas period continues to see growing levels of public movement, creating heightened security and traffic challenges.

“The strategy is to have our quick-response teams moving through these heavily trafficked areas on motorcycles conducting surveillance,” he said.

He noted that JamaicaEye will play a critical role in the policing strategy, with increased use of the surveillance network throughout the season.

“One of the things that we do a lot, and we will be increasing that for the season is to utilise our closed-circuit television (CCTV) system… to observe traffic, look at the trends, to monitor people, and where we see anything at all that is not in keeping with normality, we will dispatch our teams to check and to deal with it,” he pointed out.

ACP McKenzie noted that the police has been seeing an increase in Christmas traffic over the years, driven by improved infrastructure, increased commercial activity and a growing number of vehicles on the nation’s roads.

“In fact, we have some 700,000 vehicles that are registered and inevitably, we always have those that are not, especially some of those motorcycles, so we have seen a kind of multiplying of public movement,” he told JIS News.

ACP McKenzie said that the effects of Hurricane Melissa have further intensified traffic volumes, particularly within the Kingston Metropolitan Region (KMR).

“What we have also noticed at the end of last month coming into December is that because of Hurricane Melissa, the Kingston Metropolitan Region is now inundated with more vehicles. A lot of persons are actually shifting, doing business within the KMR, and so we have to be more vigilant,” he noted.

He added that increased highway usage, extended business hours and heavier night-time activity are also influencing police deployment.