Jamaica Live: Bruce Golding Questions if Human Rights Must be Restricted to Lower Crime in Jamaica – Watch Video

January 31, 2023

In the latest airing of his radio show Jamaica Live, former Jamaican prime minister and leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Bruce Golding spoke on crime and possible strategies to lower the country’s high crime rate.

During the discussion, Golding raised the question of whether human rights needed to be curtailed to lower crime.

Golding posed the question of why Jamaica had one of the highest murder rates in the world and listed the usual suspects that are often chosen as the root of Jamaica’s crime issue, such as politics and poverty. But the former PM dismissed those reasons, as he did not believe the facts supported those arguments.

He went on to ask if there was a conflict between upholding human rights and the necessary steps that needed to be taken to ensure citizens’ overall safety. Golding’s guest, Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin, said that he did not think Jamaica’s current crime status required the trade-off of human rights for crime reduction.

But Golding countered and stated that the imposition of States of Public Emergency (SOEs) implied that a suspension of human rights was needed in certain circumstances.

Also giving his view on the topic, retired Senior Superintendent of Police Reneto Adams explained that the police needed freedom to carry out the necessary measures but said that the many international conventions that the Jamaican government agreed to, such as human rights treaties, militate against the way the country is governed.

Watch the video below.