The failure of hard policing
published: Wednesday | July 2, 2003
Delroy Chuck
WHILE THE disbanding of the Crime Management Unit (CMU) was long overdue, and welcomed by right thinking members of the society, there are still lessons we need to learn from its short, sordid, history. I am well aware that many, perhaps a majority of, Jamaicans support the hard policing of the CMU. In a society overwhelmed by violence, Senior Superintendent Renato Adams and the CMU were viewed as the protectors and heroes in the police force, the men with the courage and disposition to fight the hardcore criminals and win the battle against the drug dons, marauding gangs and violent gunmen.
We did not need the Commissioner of Police, Francis Forbes, to demonstrate, with statistics, the failure of the CMU. Those of us who watched and discerned the unfolding spectacle of increased criminality, overstressed policemen and the gross injustices could easily have told the Commissioner, and did, that the CMU had failed. Its mission of collecting intelligence, controlling the flow of guns and drugs, dismantling the gangs, tackling the high rate of shootings and murders and, ultimately, reducing the fear of crime seemed to have been forgotten, as SSP Adams and his team got embroiled in many controversial and questionable killings.
HARD-HITTING, COMBATIVE
AND BRUTAL POLICING
SSP Adams' style of hard-hitting, combative and brutal policing has never and could never work in a free society. At the beginning, I was admittedly impressed with the CMU's convoy of flashing blue lights, with SSP Adams leading from the front, and its stated intention to collect intelligence and to put fear in the minds of violent criminals that a squad of fearless police officers would tackle them on their criminal turf. Yet, with time, I felt the Unit was bound to fail. It started to alienate whole communities, and destroyed the good police-community relations built up by the local police stations. Soon, communities saw the CMU as their enemies instead of their protectors and friends.
Why it took so long for the Commissioner of Police to disband the CMU is not clear. Admittedly, the frightening tales of the events in Kraal, Clarendon may well have sealed the Unit's fate. Yet, what happened in Kraal was no more vicious and shocking than the killings in Braeton and Tivoli, and the many damning allegations of killings. Certainly, the killing of Andrew Stevens o/c Andrew Phang, was well documented, with many witnesses willing to give statements to the media, the PPCA, BSI, OPR and other agencies, telling of how Phang was handcuffed, taken from a police jeep to the back of the premises and, from the witnesses' accounts, cold-bloodedly murdered. Yet, to date, nothing has happened to bring the alleged perpetrators in the CMU to justice. No doubt, citizens started to think and believe that the CMU was given a licence to kill, as long as they could identify the victims as gunmen, gang leaders and criminal terrorists. Is it any wonder that before long members of the CMU started to complain about the methods and strategy of the unit and asked to be relieved from it? What do we make of the former Chairman of the Police Federation, Sgt. Steve Brown, who in his final address spoke of the psychological trauma of men who worked in the CMU and how they broke down in tears when they were interviewed, as they spoke of their activities within the Unit? These men, Sgt. Brown warned, will need counselling, long-term counselling, to overcome their period of service in the CMU.
Still, SSP Adams cannot take all the blame for what went wrong, terribly wrong, over a protracted period. To be sure, there were many persons who asked for the Unit's disbandment. I am aware that Derrick Smith - Opposition Spokesman on National Security, Jamaicans for Justice, the Independent Human Rights Council, the National Committee on Crime, Talk Show Hosts and myself, have repeatedly questioned the activities of the CMU and wondered why it continued for so long. It may well be that those who set up and gave the CMU its mandate believed it was a needed and necessary squad in the fight against crime, and they must accept some of the blame for the injustices and wrongs. Well, the CMU must be a compelling and final lesson to emphasise that hard, brutal and aggressive policing cannot work in a society of free men.
SPECIAL SQUADS
I accept that special squads are essential in every police unit, especially here in Jamaica in which the criminal elements seem to have the upper hand in many communities. Yet, special squads must only be called out for special operational duties, to deal with emergency situations and to act on reliable intelligence. Special squads cannot be a part of the normal, every day, operational patrols of a police force. Professional policing needs to be tackled on many levels and a special squad is surely just one level. Another level, perhaps the most important level, is intelligence gathering on which the true mettle of a Police Force will be measured. Without good, effective and reliable intelligence, a police force cannot efficiently carry out its main duty - to control, prevent and prosecute criminality. At present, how the police gather and garner intelligence is a matter of serious concern and certainly needs augmenting. What is quite clear is that hard policing that creates mistrust, disrespect and injustice is more likely to destroy instead of augment the collection of good and reliable intelligence.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Opposition Member of Parliament. He can be contacted by e-mail at elchuck@Hotmail.Com.
