The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Citizen Security and Justice Programme, funded to the tune of $20m from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), has been put on hold as the Minnis administration reviews the project with a view toward tweaking what the former government had established, National Security Minister Marvin Davis has said.

As people clamour for details about the administration's crime fighting plans, the programme should occupy a central role in its agenda, Mr Dames said, adding it's important to be able to measure the success or failure of such a programme.

"One of the things we haven't been doing or been good at as a country is we introduce programmes and there is never a measurement of whether the programme is successful or not," he said.

"We tout its success, but how can we measure that? That's one of the things we are very mindful of.

"It's one of those programmes we're currently reviewing. There is a need to make adjustments to ensure that it's serving the need it was intended to. One of the things with a programme such as that is we need to ensure that we identify persons who can perform the functions related to the objectives of that particular programme."

The review and tweaking of the programme is unlikely to involve requesting more money from the IDB, Mr Dames said, adding: "Money isn't an issue."

The project, launched under the Christie administration, aims to tackle violence through conflict resolution, address the high unemployment rates among youth, address high recidivism rates and solve the limited capacity of the criminal justice system to deal with crime and violence.

Under the former administration, the government began a high-profile effort to introduce a parole system at the Department of Correctional Services through the programme.

"This," Mr Dames said, "is one of the programmes that if we can kind of focus on the objectives it was intended to serve it can work. But we have a lot of work to do and we're committed to making it work. It's a programme with a tremendous amount of promise. It was just started recently. The objectives are good. We just need now to make certain that we have the proper framework in place with persons who can serve the needs of the community but who can also understand clearly the roles and responsibilities of the programme.

"To start it, we have centres already open in Fox Hill and Quakoo Street, but we have to build more structures around it to effectively serve the need for what it is intended to do.

"We are still assessing, but I feel confident that within this month we should be on our way," he told The Tribune.