'living on Chiney man land until him decide fi run we'

That's the desperate situation of squatters in Jamaica. With a close-to 50 percent increase in the number of families living as squatters over the past decade, the government is turning punitive. Dr Morais Guy, minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Transport, Works and Housing, says the government is proposing to implement a modern trespass act to replace the permissive 160-year-old law that dates to the end of slavery.

The Gleaner reports on the difficult situation of several squatters in Rasta City, a shack community in Clarendon.

Question for the government: if more and more people are becoming squatters, how do you expect turning them into criminals will help?