By Don Robotham, Contributor
Deputy Commissioner of Police Tilford Johnson, flanked by Senior Superintendent Hector White, right, and Superintendent Newton Amos in discussion with a group of boys in December last year during a curfew imposed on Payne Avenue, Kingston. - File
THE ANNOUNCEMENT by the Police High Command that they were losing their fight against crime should have come as no surprise. To anyone following the report of incidents, especially in Montego Bay, Spanish Town and rural Jamaica, it was clear that we were in trouble. We are grateful for the candour of the Police High Command. This must be the first time in Jamaican history that the leadership of a Government agency took the initiative to report failure rather than to trumpet some non-existent success.
But while this new attitude to public accountability is to be welcomed, it cannot, of course, hide the main point. We are in a crisis in our crime policy.
WHY THE FAILURE
It is important to understand why the crime initiative implemented at the start of the year has failed. This is necessary so that we can correct our mistakes and move on to a more effective course. The chief element in the plan was a community strategy. The police and the army would impose curfews in designated inner city hot spots but in a community-friendly manner. The security forces would win the co-operation of the community by involvement in social projects and assisting the community in various endeavours. By this means it would win friends at the community level and by so doing acquire better information and isolate the wrongdoers.
The best part of this strategy was its community aspect. It was and remains important for the police to operate in a civil manner in all Jamaican communities and to win public support in its fight against criminality. But there were a number of fatal weaknesses with the community approach which must now be corrected.
First, it assumes the availability of substantial resources for community development projects to attract youths otherwise attracted to gun crime. But the harsh fact is that such resources do not exist. The country is in a financial crisis in which severe targets of deficit reduction have been imposed. This is not a political matter: whoever is in power will swiftly find that no such resources are available.
But the second weakness is more basic. The community strategy focuses mainly on the fryers. It does not focus on the big fish. Yet it is the big fish the four or five persons who allegedly control international drug criminality in Jamaica who are the root of our problem. There will be no sustainable reduction of gun and drug crime until we deal with these big fish. We cannot ignore the mayhem of the fryers. That is why we need special units. But they are not the heart of the matter.
The big fish are focused on the international drug trade and more or less treat the extortion rackets as a sideline to compensate the fryers. Turf battles over the extortion rackets as well over treachery in the drug trade are the fundamental cause of the increase in homicides. The only way to deal with this reality is to go to the head of the stream.
NETTING THE BIG FISH
This cannot be done by 'intelligence' and 'brain-work' alone as some are inclined to argue. After the intelligence has been collected and analysed, one then has to act. Our chief problem is not lack of intelligence or brain power. It is lack of action.
The reason for this lack of action has to do mainly with the legal situation. For example, our present legal regime, derived from Britain and presided over by the blessed Privy Council, does not allow for evidence collected by electronic means to be used in a Jamaican court. The provisions of habeas corpus and due process as they currently exist in Jamaica allow all drug lords to use their ample resources to run rings around Government prosecutors. At present, we are not on firm legal ground in attempting to seize the monies and assets which are derived from criminality. There is still no plea-bargaining legislation.
The drug lords are not fools. They are educated and well-informed people. They can and do hire the best lawyers in the land. The security forces are afraid of taking firm action because of the queasy legal situation which they will certainly face. There is no question that the drug lords would take great pleasure in hauling both Commissioner Forbes and Minister Phillips before the Privy Council. They are right to believe that in any such contest, it is they, not the Government, who will be upheld by the lords of the law, safely sequestered in London! They are right to believe that many worthy lawyers will demonstrate, yea, even in Gordon House, on their behalf. They are correct to believe that every single human rights organisation in Jamaica will howl to the high heavens, especially their heavens abroad, on their behalf.
This cannot be allowed to continue. It is obvious that the only solution to our crime crisis is some form of preventive detention without trial. The policy of the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom of swiftly deporting Jamaican criminals is the proof of this. No trial. Just get them out of Britain as fast as possible and keep them out. No nonsense from Amnesty tolerated there!
We, of course, cannot deport. Therefore, we have to do the next best thing: detain. We have to seize assets. We have to encourage and reward treachery. Only three questions arise: First, how to organise effective civil oversight of the process of detention to make it impartial. Second, how to give it a solid legal framework and justification. Third, (the toughest one) how to establish humane facilities for detention instead of some hell-hole.
Criminals, including drug lords, are human beings and have rights. The reason we want to remove them from society is not to seek revenge or to teach them a lesson or to humiliate them. Such emotions, which as a people we are very prone to, are a complete waste of time and energy. We must try to abandon such primitive ideas. Detention is a measure to protect the society, that's all. Be clinical and humane about it. Proper detention facilities are vital. They must be able to pass international scrutiny. No need to brutalise the society anymore. This will require budgetary resources.
It is vital that detention takes place within the rule of law and is subject to some form of quasi-judicial review. In addition to detention without trial, we also have to take a long, hard look at the behaviour of our lawyers and the privileges which they enjoy currently in communicating with their drug lord clients. This may well be in need of some strategic modifications. In general, new legislation in a number of areas mentioned above, is absolutely vital and urgent.
TOURISM THREATENED
I hope no one will argue in response to these proposals which are not new, that this is a 'panic reaction' or an invasion of the human rights of the Jamaican people. If these tired arguments held any water in the past they hold none now. Yes, what I am proposing is an incursion on human rights. I would have thought that was obvious. The issue, however, is whether you have an alternative. If so, I would be glad to support it. We are getting closer and closer to a situation where there will be no human rights for anybody. Our options are being foreclosed while we dither and fool around with empty legalisms and rhetoric. The basic foundations of the rule of law are being destroyed by a ruthless international drug criminality and legalistic empty-headedness.
Let no one say that the answer to crime is increased employment for young people. This is an empty cliché designed to evade the necessity for hard choices in the here and now. For it is now clear that the economy is growing. Tourism is doing much, much better. Real prospects for increased employment on a substantial scale can be generated, if, and only if, this growth is sustained. But if violent crime in Montego Bay continues at the current pace tourism will collapse there. And only a fool would imagine that Ocho Rios - the current growth point - would escape unscathed. Especially since, as was predicted, the criminal gangs have re-organised and raised the level of their effectiveness to counter the minor steps taken against them so far.
Now is, therefore, not the time for the Opposition or the Government to play stupid games. This is not a political football. This is not a long or medium-term issue. Now is the time for action. Get the legal instruments ready and let's roll!
Don Robotham is an anthropologist who specialises in development issues in the Caribbean and West Africa.
