PM Says SOEs Provide For Better Use Of Resources To Fight Crime

Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, says the States of Public Emergency (SOEs) provide for a better use of resources to fight crime.

“What the SOE does is to give us the ability to have the police force and the military deployed. People will say ‘well, you can deploy the police and the military generally’. The difference with the SOE is that the military is also able to deploy on its own,” Mr. Holness said, following a tour of  Westmoreland on November 18.

“The military operates on a different tempo than the police, and so their deployment can be more intense and more long-term, and that gives us a multiplying effect of the security forces. So, we use the SOEs for that reason, as well, when we need more resources to be injected into an area,” he added.

The SOEs have been declared in St. Andrew South, Kingston West, Kingston Central, and Kingston East in the Corporate Area, and St. James, Hanover and Westmoreland.

Mr. Holness noted that in the communities where the SOEs have been declared, “you would see a dampening effect [on crime], except in Westmoreland”.

“We have to invest more resources here, spend more time here to bring that problem under control,” he emphasised.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Holness expressed his condolences to Mabel Forbes, the mother of police trainee, Constable Duvaughn Brown, who was killed recently.

He said every effort will be made to provide the necessary assistance.