“Police inevitably become corrupt... Police always observe that criminals prosper. It takes a pretty dull policeman to miss the fact that the position of authority is the most prosperous criminal position available.”
― Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune
The Jamaican Constabulary Force (#JCF) is the main law enforcement agency in Jamaica. They are responsible for the country-wide #crime investigation and management, they are creatures of statute and as the government's legal arm of violence, beholden to the Ministry of National Security which is presided over my M.P. Dr. Horace Chang. JCF is an agency of government that enforces the law of the land. They also furbish the government with revenues, amounting to millions of dollars every year through court fines and seizure of assets. Despite this, they are treated with scant regard and rewarded with inadequate remuneration for their service. Crime in Jamaica is a serious and complex issue. Massive amounts of money and manpower are spent on reducing and preventing crime on a daily basis. Yet the Jamaican police have been a less than successful institution in helping to reduce crime rates significantly over time. Why?
Well... if I am to surmise and summarize the current state of the nation, our government does not listen to stakeholders, the citizenry and even the police.
Is the State of Emergency a Crime Plan?
THE STATE OF EMERGENCY is not a CRIME PLAN. That is this humble writer's opinion and I am sure it is the opinion of an overworked police force. It is a political device that combines two philosophically different organizations into a haphazard patchwork where they trip over each other and pose unforeseen hiccups in judicial and legal procedure. The military is a defense focused organization that though trained for combat, is not trained to combat civilians, not familiar with civil law or mechanics of criminal law and procedure. But most crucially, from a tactical perspective Jamaica Defense Force, is not geared towards active pursuit of criminals but are geared towards "holding the fort", defending and usually with less regard to civilian law. The JCF is an ever evolving creature whose tactics have to constantly adapt to the shifting and morphing nature of crime, while diligently tiptoeing around the law or doing acrobatics and contortions within the confines of legality.
If the SOE had worked last year our government wouldn't be griping about the opposition's opposition to the S.O.E. now. And most definitely the government wouldn’t need to be having one now. Three years ago February at the near beginning of our Emergency State, I stated that I believed that we need better policing and forensics as no long-term improvements were achieved by 3 years of SOEs, violent crime still plagues our nation. The #SOE is just a drastic short-term emergency response, not a sustainable strategy to reduce crime. There have been no measures accompanying the SOE geared at turning around Jamaica’s crime problem. Social intervention is handled like n a flash in the pan or a momentary public relations stunt rather than a sustained effort.
During recent salary negotiations the Government offered the JCF a four per cent increase on their measly salary and expects them to function at full throttle for another SOE. This situation is unreasonable and untenable, and the Government needs to rethink its strategy or risk losing members, which they can least afford at this time. When speaking to a police friend of mine, he complained bitterly that this has been a sticking point from the day when Bruce Golding said he wouldn’t give them one red cent more! The problems pestering the police force, such as poor working conditions, remuneration, among others, did not happen overnight. Successive governments from either of the two political parties have had to deal with these issues and none have adequately addressed the concerns of the members.
SOE What Now?
When the first SOE was declared in January 2018, murder tallies would reach 1,287 that year. It increased to 1,339 in 2019 and then slightly decreased in 2020 to 1,323. So even Stevie Wonder and Bredda Bull can see that SOE is not the answer as criminals continue to impact the economy and productive segment of society. And now... people have to sit in miserable conditions in hospitals and through curfews and COVID restriction, only to have their rights further stripped away.
What we are getting wrong, is that we have tried it all... already. What is said of someone who does the same thing expecting different results? They are mad. Are our heads of state collectively mad? Furthermore what seems dim witted in these desperate plans we keep repeating is that it pretends crime in Jamaica is simply a problem of a limited number of criminals holding us all for ransom. So if we lock away or execute enough of the criminals the crime will stop or at least be reduced. Such analysis never considers the larger truth that the number of criminals is not finite at all, and that there are structures in Jamaica that produce and encourage criminality. As Sir P of PolitricksWatch likes to put it, Jamaica has a conveyor belt the spits out criminals. And worse, what if these criminals do not fear death or dying? What if they’ve always accepted that as an inevitability? What would have been your point in trying to drive ‘fear’ into their hearts then? Are we adopting the concepts of comic book characters like Batman and Daredevil, who operate on an ethic rooted in fear?
The other day I was reasoning with a breddrin, fellow Cornwallian from Granville. Bobo… and he gave me some profound insight. He had been reasoning with a juvenile from Granville who had been detained during the state of emergency, and he recalled the youth who had been innocent to the inner workings of crime, was now telling him how being locked up had let him meet a whole lot of real criminals in jail and had become “linkees” or “chargees” and “parries”as it were. SO not only did the state of emergency not work and failed to address the root causes of crime… it afforded crime some rest time to foment and ferment, crime got to network to think! Worst of all, by grouping members of the same demographic ages 14 to around 28 from diverse walks of life, allowing them to meet and greet with crime, up close and personal. The monstrous octopus now has tentacles outside and inside the cell, spawning splint cells, who are now possibly some sort of agent of crime. For after the rights of the youth have been trampled long enough, they are eventually let out of jail due to no real evidence there to hold them; they then return to their communities demoralized, disenchanted, disrespected and disenfranchised.
Labourites and those happy for the SOE... applaud the locking away of innocent young men from “those places” in despicable conditions for long periods as a necessary evil. Of course that’s fine, after all, REMEMBER... it’s not OUR sons, brothers or friends. And if that act makes the youths mistrust the Police and later become criminals, then it’s no one’s fault; they would have become that way anyway.
Our history of bad-man policing goes all the way back to Batman & Robin, to Joe Williams, to Laing, to Bigga Fords, to Trinity, to Adams; and our history of strong handed policing has included Echo Squad (1976), Ranger Squad (1980), Eradication Squad (1980), Area Four Task Force (1986), Operation Ardent (1992), ACID (1993), Operation Justice (1995), Operation Dovetail (1997), Operation Intrepid (1999), Operation Kingfish (2004). With all these bad men police and all these heavy handed operations, our crime rate has never fallen significantly, or never stayed fallen.
In recent times, more municipalities across the world have been choosing to place greater emphasis on police-community partnerships and the co-production of safety, which necessitates a strong focus on equity, transparency, accountability, shared information, and changes in how police are trained, evaluated and promoted. Local policing however, is rarely regulated in the same way or under any real scrutiny. Local police have wide discretion to implement various policing tactics without seeking written permissions or public input or following officially-adopted protocol. Essentially, the local police in Jamaica are entrusted to maintain public safety by enforcing laws broadly and by statute at their discretion, but there is no imperative or incentive to employ community policing individually as a tactic or broadly as institution wide mandate.
A local police Superintendent or the Commissioner, for example, may institute a zero-tolerance “tough on crime” approach to policing, or, conversely, a community-oriented “boots on the ground, feet on the beat” strategy to leverage the power of residents to fight crime. How the police operate is mostly at he behest of the heads of the institution or at their own discretion. The ‘zero tolerance’ and ‘tough on crime’ measures are in my eyes and I suspect much of the public, is a total failures. “They’ve created a symbolic criminal law system, a criminal law system that tricks citizens into thinking that with strong penalties we
solve the problem or even deter criminals.
The law enforcement officers, "Babylon" as they are known in the street... have been the face of oppression for far too many years, and now that link is embedded in the minds of fellow citizens. In the past, the laws adopted by our society have required police officers to perform many unpalatable tasks, such as ensuring legalized discrimination and ‘classism’ or even denying the basic human rights to many fellow Jamaicans as was the will of our governments. The government need to give the police force a listening ear or court a situation where the entire nation and the police force is opposed to the government of the day, which could precipitate social upheaval or even coups. If indeed the Government had the JCF as a priority, it should not be the case that force's members have to purchase their own uniforms and work under poor conditions for long hours without reasonable remuneration.
As a citizen, journalist and communicator I see the mistrust between many communities and the police and then the growing gap between the government and the police. On speaking with an officer, I realized there is so much about the logistics of policing and its daily operations that aren’t optimized, streamlined or efficient, that it is clear a real operational appraisal needs to take place in the force, then the government needs to come to that table and be forcefully updated.
There are gaps to bridge and connect within many segments of our communities and society. The first step to bridging the gap is for the police to acknowledge and apologize for the actions of the past and the role that their institution has played in our society’s historical mistreatment of poorer communities. After that is the ironing out internal procedures, modus operandi and ethos. Enforcement is part of the core of true policing, however harm reduction, sustaining healthy communities and working with youth lie at the heart of the true task of policing. We, both the public and police must seek to co-produce safety within the community and eventually the nation.
We fear speaking up against injustices and abrogation of powers, especially those that are unleashed by States of Emergency and now the Disaster Risk Management Act (#DRMA) even though these things are wrong. Instead we say "it will all work out”; as if by some magical means the right result will occur. We continue to believe change is “just around the corner” and so plan for a country with less crime. This vain plan is based on the strategy of hope, bereft of a detailed needs analysis and a solid plan of action. We “know” that the next leader from the other party (or maybe even from the same party) will be different and will be the one to “save us”. We continue to wait on the messiah, like waiting for Godot. Yet what type of leaders do we keep getting and our political parties keep producing.
Well... Jamaica's political parties have a well documented history of gang/individual gangster alignment & of patronage and enforcers giving rise to the earliest armed gangs.
- Spanglers - PNP connection
- Shower Posse - JLP connection
- Clans - PNP connection
- One Order - JLP connection…
So from bad man policing to bad man linking with politicians, you realize the badness “tun up” in Jamaica. We fully bad as they say in the streets and this maybe at the crux of our problem a culture of badness and badmindedness.
A badness so pervasive that our political leaders are in wikileaked documents on corruption lists and have revoked visas etc. It is this tyrannical, bully mind and bad mind that cannot fathom real social intervention and will make no time for it and won’t have any gusto to give social intervention a thrust and some umph! However if there is no economic aid that truly benefits communities… crime will continue mutating in brooding and breeding ground of badness and badmind. The youth are seeking out new routes to financial power. Some have begun to become mini militias willing to do the Ocean’s 11 style money heists or act out a Jamaican Netflix series.
So after all this legal violence and brute force… with little or no social intervention what comes next… what will fill the current socio-economic void? For the economy is tightening again and that is why we see more and more radical robberies and killings. Let us not pretend the issues aren't real… time to stop acting like Jamaica is a happy camp. The government needs to fix our access to the economy and fix the education system or the rebellions will occur and crime will continue to fester and one day the mob will be at Fort Holness with stakes and pitchforks. The maddening crowd, feverish and sickened by the festering badness that is Jamaica’s true epidemic.
What is necessary now is an "Agreement for the Democratic Security". My greatest concern is the decomposition of the political forces, the increase in institutional violence and desperate resorting to SOEs endlessly, the increase of bad police practices, corruption expressed through acts like collecting money, or freed zones or spaces politicians turn a blind eye to that allow the committing of crimes and many other expressions of crime. We must create a new social paradigm and ethos which is to have a more wide-open approach to solving security problems that is not focused solely on the criminal law functions of police, courts, penitentiaries, and law enforcement, which usually play an active role after the fact and event. We need instead to work on the origins, causes, and the whole aetiology of violence in our nation.
All of these activities unavoidably deal with human nature, with individual victims and their families and communities, with deeply-rooted power structures, with vested interests, with anger, frustration, mistrust, disappointment, and fear. Change will require new data, but also new levels of empathy. To bring all the stakeholders (local politicians, the citizenry and police) together and balance their interests in a process of democratic engagement will not be a simple task. The right questions have to be asked about the means and ends of policing. Are any means justifiable to reduce crime? What are the costs and benefits of
different policing tactics? With evidence-based answers, legislation can guide the design of policing processes and set the parameters for rules. Rules and protocol can then be established to guide the administration of police departments. Meaningful public involvement throughout the process can provide legitimacy for new and revised policies, laws, and actions. Furthermore, this may allow us to generate a model of community policing, which is a model of police organization that goes beyond the needs of a political regime. This model goes directly to fulfill the needs of citizens. I rest my case.
About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Social Advocate, Community Activist and Legal Student. Follow on Twitter & Instagram @yahnyk. Follow on Youtube @ and Reply to yannickpessoa@gmail.com
