Police warn of crime risk amid growing business developments in St Ann

ST ANN, Jamaica — Police say the proliferation of business developments in St Ann is creating additional challenges for law enforcement in the parish. According to the Jamaica Constabulary Force's commanding officer for the region, Senior Superintendent Carlos Russell, the growing number of establishments is attracting many job seekers from outside the area. Hower, he warned that when the migrants fail to secure jobs or become unemployed, some of them turn to crime. “St Ann right now is the fastest developing parish. We're seeing that there are a lot of developments. So when you have development, there is a need for labour. And you find that people are coming from far and wide to do manual labour. And sometimes when these persons are laid off or they are fired, you find that they do not leave," Russel said. "They find areas in the parish to stay. They find a girlfriend. They find some areas to stay. And when they don't have work, then they resort to criminal activities. So you'll find that things like break-ins, robberies, and those things will increase if these persons are not found and arrested,” the senior cop continued, adding that the developments have also resulted in traffic congestion. Russell, who was speaking on the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s Force4Good podcast, noted that the developments springing up across the area do not have the necessary road infrastructure to support them. “This poses a lot of problems for the police in ensuring that these roads are free and traffic is flowing.  St Ann is now the party capital of Jamaica. We would have learned from the past. Now, we are meeting with those promoters and trying to be proactive to put things in place to ensure that we don't have that backup of traffic. So, we have a traffic plan…..we have enough officers to monitor the various terminals on the road to ensure that traffic is flowing and they don't have that congestion,” he said.