Excerpt from the Jamaica Observer column published Monday, 15 March 2021
By Jean Lowrie-Chin
It is cold comfort for the bereaved families, but we are seeing cases coming to court and sentences being handed down more swiftly. Journalists who cover court proceedings, like the Jamaica Observer‘s Senior Staff Reporter Alicia Dunkley-Willis, help us to understand the trauma experienced by the families of murder victims.
In her report following the sentencing of one of the murderers of St Andrew businesswoman Simone Campbell-Collymore and her taxi driver Winston Walters, family members shared the grief of their loss. We have to ask ourselves: How are we raising our young ones when the dead woman’s children, whose father is alleged to be the mastermind of the murder, are jeered about the tragedy on their school playground? How are we ensuring that they develop a sense of empathy for their fellow schoolmates? Walters’ 14-year-old son, who was in court and described as being “rigid with grief”, tries to cope “by hanging on to his father’s possessions, even wearing a pair of his father’s pants to court”. With all our great plans, if we do not get crime under control, we risk a mental health crisis that may take even longer to resolve than this COVID-19 crisis.
Jamaica Highlights 