The tax on books shows the Government is not connecting the dots regarding illiteracy and crime.

Links between crime and illiteracy should be evident to anyone committed to addressing Jamaica's crime and violence problems. Young men with the profile below can be found on street corners, in gangs, in prisons and in morgues:

His family and community have low literacy levels, and he left school illiterate.

He is, therefore, unable to use or understand information that is in print or on a computer.

He is not equipped to develop his knowledge and potential.

He has been able to find no legitimate means of supporting himself or contributing to his family.

He spends his days on the street corner, unemployed, bored, and alienated from mainstream society.

He proves his manhood by having a couple of babymothers, acting aggressively and committing offences.

The guns/drugs don is his role model, as he is not equipped to have more socially acceptable aspirations.

He is charged with an offence and serves a prison term.

Having a prison record increases his already dim chances of finding a job.

The relationship between literacy and crime is by no means absolute, as highly literate people commit crimes as well. However, available data suggest that illiteracy provides a breeding ground for crime and violence. For example, The Department of Justice states, "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence and crime is /welded to reading failure."

Minister of Education Andrew Holness said, in March 2008, that Jamaica faced serious issues related to literacy. He made a direct link between illiteracy and violence in schools because students become frustrated when they cannot understand or access what is being taught.

Superintendent of Police Dathan Henry linked illiteracy and crime when he stated at a November 2008 forum:

Gun crimes

"We have realised that many of the persons committing these gun crimes range from 14 to 25 years old, and what we found was that most of these guys are illiterate and unable to reason. So, they seek after and join gangs to be in possession of a weapon."

At the same forum, Mayor of May Pen Milton Brown said: "What do you do with a 21-year-old young man who is illiterate, is unskilled, has two children and a girlfriend? What do you do with him? So, criminality is one of the only ways open to him. Illiteracy is one of the prime sources of food to crime.

Jamaica's adult literacy rate is currently 79.9 per cent, compared with 90 per cent in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. Those countries seem to have found it more cost effective to invest in literacy rather than spend on the kind of crime rate that can cripple a society and an economy.

Think again, Minister of Finance Shaw, we don't have much room for error here.

I am, etc.,

YVONNE MCCALLA

SOBERS

sobersy@yahoo.com