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Geography and Geology Grad students win DIA Labs Ideathon Competition

 Left to Right: Kristinia Doughorty, Aleem Mahabir and Romario Anderson.

Three Geography and Geology graduate students - Kristinia Doughorty, Aleem Mahabir and Romario Anderson – were recently announced as winners (Crime and Security category) from a pool of over 100 entrants in the 2020 Democratizing Innovation in the Americas (DIA) Labs Ideathon competition. The competition serves as a platform for young professionals to start long-term projects in community building by seeking out innovative solutions to combat the impact of the fast-spreading COVID-19 pandemic in the sectors of education, health, economic relief and crime and security.

The three-member team, assisted by Dr. Robert Kinlocke (lecturer Geography and Geology) proposed a solution to projected increases in crime rates due to the major economic disruptions from the unprecedented global effort being undertaken to flatten the COVID-19 curve. An increasing crime trend is a concern for law enforcement agencies in the Global South, like the Jamaica Constabulary Force, who already struggle to address disproportionately high crime rates in the face of major resource constraints. The team proposed the implementation of a multidimensional, proactive approach to community crime control and management, which optimized the efficiency of local policing efforts while keeping costs in check. Their novel solution integrates various methods of predictive policing (e.g. the performance management system COMPSTAT), with a restorative social justice component that utilizes a comprehensive mix of psychological, social and community interventions to address the root structural causes of crime. They have received funding from the Institute of Labour and Economics, Citibank, Trust for the Americas and the Organization of American States to implement their solution in the community of Friendship Lane, Kingston, which will serve as a pilot for other similar efforts.

For more on Urban Labs for Youth Innovation: https://www.thetrustfortheamericas.org/programs/dia/urban-labs-youth-innovation

For more on the Department of Geography and Geology: https://www.mona.uwi.edu/dogg/

Published on 16 Jul, 2020

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