Come and see the conditions for yourself and dont threaten us, was the call from Delacree Lane and Payne Avenue, one of the more impoverished inner-city communities dotting the Corporate Area.  There, the residents are making another call for the authorities to include poverty in their latest initiative to tackle the countrys spiraling crime wave.

We want water, justice, work, food, medicine for the old and destitute, and decent roofs over our heads, says Machel, a popular 29-year-old community leader.

Indignation deepens the lines on the faces of scores of young men sitting on the corner, venting anger about how they have been treated over the years.  Police abuses are rampant and although these areas are among crime-ridden communities, which account for much of the crimes in the South St Andrew Police Division, residents there feel they are neglected and disrespected. 

The authorities, they say, believe that only brute force can work when dealing with them, a complaint repeated many times before.  Machel, who has been in and out of police custody, said he has become the target for the police every time a crime is committed in the area. 

I try to convince them that Im only trying to hold the community together, but they think Im driving the crime, he said.

But the existing conditions are not conducive to peace.  Many residents charge that they are not living, they are surviving like animals.  Living conditions written and spoken about on numerous occasions in the past remain the same no running water in most houses in the dilapidated, ramshackle neighbourhood of about 500 residents.   

Most residents dont have steady jobs and those who work have small jobs paying measly salaries.  And the rising cost of basic food is taking its toll.  

The narrow streets lined with corrugated zinc fences are littered with garbage.  Pot-bellied and barefooted children are running around empty lanes.  The only basic school built with assistance from Food For the Poor, is partially vandalised and closed, several weeks following a recent flare-up of gun violence in the area.  

Fear factor
Many young boys and girls who should be in schools, told the Sunday Herald that they had no money to buy lunch and pay bus fare, hence they were not in school.  The elders in the community express fear that if nothing is done, these youngsters are potential raw material for crime factories in the inner cities.

After several unfulfilled promises from members of the political directorate and the business community along Spanish Town Road, to provide assistance with economic projects, residents say they are now frustrated.  According to them, they are not looking for handouts.  However, they claim they need assistance with income-generating projects, which would go a far way in making life easier for them.

And while skills levels are low in the area, there are many unemployed high school graduates who say they are denied jobs because of the stigma attached to where they are living.  

Then there is the fear factor.  Several years of internecine war has claimed scores of lives in the area, resulting in pent-up bitterness and mistrust among the residents.  Up to a few weeks ago, protagonists in Tavares Gardens, popularly called Payne Land, and Delacree Lane traded gunfire regularly, and residents from both communities could not walk along Payne Avenue, which divides both communities.  

However, a truce is now on, due to the efforts of Machel and his counterpart from Tavares Gardens, popularly known as Wokerman.  Today, the residents, many of whom are still nursing wounds and mourning the loss of relatives and friends, are enjoying the peace.

Both communities underscore the vast gap between the haves and the have nots in Jamaica, a country with one of the largest wealth disparities in the Caribbean.  Throughout the Sunday Heralds tour of the community, children and old women poured out their distress, including revealing that they had not had their first meal for the day.

While conceding that there were troublemakers in their ranks, they were not convinced that the authorities were willing to separate law-abiding citizens from lawbreakers, in the fight against crime.