Crystal Evans The Writer- My Writings, Unhappy Childhood and My Life

People sometimes ask me why did i become a writer or why did you write this story? Why is your stories laced with social commentary and elements of life among the Jamaican working class? Don't you grow tire of such themes? Are you writing about your life?

Response :

I once said i wrote books for every Woman with a the girl trapped inside that some man once told that she was not good enough. My aim is to create rather powerful heroines. Women who irrespective of their everyday struggles manage to be successful. Success does not necessarily mean glamour,their success could be transitory, a working progress, a dream on its way to coming true. My heroines are the women i have been, the women i am now and the women i would love to become. They are not me, they are a part of me. They are my realities.


Did i have an unhappy childhood? Yes, I have spent most of my life feeling completely out of sync with the world and growing up in a semi-literate community did not help. People saw my smart as meaning i was crazy, my anomie behavior as madness and to give legitimacy to their beliefs, they spent their time painting my intellect as weird and occult. I have since dumbed down around them so as not to make them uncomfortable. My success is unknown to many in my natal district, this kind of accomplish would scare the hell out of them.


I think the scariest part of writing is when you know that publishing exposes you. People will readily assume things about you and what you are about based on what you wrote. They will attack you if your writing does not reflect their viewpoint because it is so much easier to make it personal than to rationalize what you wrote.

My deviation from the standard caribbean or Jamaican literature has not really brook any respect from my peers. I am not a good writer. I am a novelist. I write what i feel. I do not know anything about technique than what i learnt at Sixth Form doing my A-levels. I write stories. I write about life. I have no other glamorous accomplishment to speak of so in my interviews do not ask me about what i have done with my life or if my writings are justified by a piece of paper a professional handed me stating i am licensed to do this.

My stories are not entirely fictional, they are for the most part influenced by real life events. My overactive imagination compensates for the banality of my existence and i suppose some other soul within my culture, children of my own socialization would benefit from a respite from this reproached reality.

Jamaican Police Officers need Psychological Evaluation

The Jamaican society is expressing collective disgust for the surging crime rate. We do not insist that the police soften on criminals because criminals rarely if ever express any mercies for their victims. 

We however believe that under the tenets of our democracy and the statutes outlined by our constitution that we would prefer if alleged criminals entered judiciary process and legal processing instead of the hurling of corpse into Van backs. 

The police force in Jamaica do not understand how it affects their image when they commit extrajudicial killings and then the media report claims that it was a police shoot out and citizens on the ground know that it is a blatant lie and affront to the grieving families. 

We also need to bring attention to mental health in Jamaica. Most police officers suffer from post traumatic stress conditions and it maybe responsible for the high levels of verbal abuse and brutalities that they often subject civilians to. 

Many have to face marauding gun men and grisly crime scenes that will alter or compromise their mental conditions. They need a police therapy session to assist them in processing the psychological taxing of occupational stress. The police officer is a human being too. 

The Jamaican Constabulary Force hierarchy must keep in mind that police officers are cut from the same mold of the criminals that they hunt. Our society has a culture of deviance which is evident in the pervasive corruption that exist in all facets of the Jamaican society. 

There should be an ethics vetting and orientation programme for new recruits including essay writing to discover how cops will deal with a particular situation. New recruits are often force to confirm to the culture of archaic policing by commanding officers through buttress or threats. 

We cannot win the war on crime and violence if the civilians hates the police or the police believes he is superior to the citizens. The resentment is building and such a situation will only feed crime not stymie it.