Lloyd Williams, Contributor
IT'S FAR from comforting to be living in a country as beautiful as Jamaica (and with such wonderful, talented people), but which unaccountably, is the third most murderous in the world - after Colombia, with its decades-long problem of insurgencies, and violence waged by cocaine traffickers against the authorities; and South Africa, with a history of political conflicts born of racial intolerance.
The toll of more than 800 people slain in the first 31 weeks of 2004 has raised the fears of many a citizen and spawned myriad theories explaining the causes of the murders, and an equal number of suggestions as to how to curb violent crime.
The fear of crime is often more frightening than crime itself, and so, the frequency and senselessness of the violence tend to strengthen the impression that Jamaica is almost as lawless as Iraq, whereSaddam Hussein emptied the prisons just before the coalition forces invaded, and where in the post-Saddam era thousands of people tote weapons ranging from assault rifles to machine guns, which they use to terrorise the law-abiding citizenry.
Still, Jamaica's seemingly intractable murder rate remains as puzzling as it is frightening. Some people put it down to the weakness of the economy too much joblessness, with the devil providing work for idle hands; others, to a shortage of police personnel, equipment and other resources which add up to inadequate overall police coverage to prevent and detect crime.
But the complex phenomenon of violent crime persists to the enveloping fear of all. The fear has apparently led to panic in some quarters, with a call coming from the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association and other organisations, for police from overseas to actually sit in Criminal Investigation Branch (detectives') offices to advise their local counterparts on how to solve the crimes that are plaguing their particular communities and frightening civil society, and the business sector in particular.
CLASH OF CULTURES
Good idea on the face of it, but would it work? No. For a start the clash of cultures would mitigate against the chances of success of any such experiment. And the fight against crime has to be looked at in a broader perspective than just the police-versus-criminals scenario.
A foreign cop in a CIB office really can't help. As foreign police advisers in Jamaica have done over the years, they can help with formulating policy guidelines, the application of certain techniques, and the development of corporate strategy, yes, but beyond that, what?
They could help the Jamaica Constabulary to set up computerised databases to track crime trends and analyse the modus operandi of certain gangs and criminals. But first, we have to get the computers scores of them for all the island's 184 police stations, if we are to get the optimum benefit from the databases.
The Jamaican police need to strengthen their intelligence capabilities on the ground and their detection ability. Where are the replacements for the Tony Hewitts who can attract high-quality, real-time intelligence that is critical to having a fighting chance against these latter-day criminals, especially the wealthier, more well-educated ones? And where are the operations people who are able to act on the information quickly and effectively? Just look at how long it takes the police to nab your average 'Mr. Wanted Man'.
The other area of weakness has to be the Jamaica Constabulary's investigative capability. In years past, you could rattle off the names of some ace detectives who delivered the goods always got their men and got them convicted too. I may very well be out of the loop, but I can't recall the last day I have heard even the police themselves lauding any top detective who is able to take a case and work it to fruition. Who have replaced the Isadore 'Dick' Hibberts, the Brenton Josephs, the W.G. Walkers, the Albert Richardses, the Reuben Robertsons, and the Jez Marstons of times past, who could take a case from the crime scene to the Home Circuit Court, with conviction 99.9 per cent guaranteed? The strength of these crack detectives was based in the quality of the intelligence they were able to get from the communities they policed. They couldn't do it alone. They were able to succeed only with the help of citizens. Until the police can cultivate and build up similar contacts, we will be only spinning our wheels.
And with so many murders being committed, one can just imagine the caseload of the average Homicide detective, especially in the Corporate Area, sections of St. Catherine and sections of St. James, who has to be racing from murder scene to murder scene so often, he can hardly scratch his head.
RESTORING CONFIDENCE
We have to restore confidence in the ability of detectives to track down the perpetrators of crimes so they know that as sure as the sun keeps rising, they will be caught and brought to trial.
Detection is the most powerful deterrent to crime not the sentence. The sentence for capital murder in Jamaica is hanging. Everybody knows that and the sentence doesn't appear to deter anybody at all. But even before the state effectively ceased hanging murder convicts in February 1988, criminals have been taking the chance that for them to be arrested, charged, tried, convicted and punished, they must first be detected and caught by the police and there is a mighty slim chance of that happening.
To get an idea of how short of resources the Jamaica Constabulary is, just count the number of vehicles you see on highway patrol on a drive from say Kingston to Negril. If you encounter six you should feel very reassured. Not many years ago you would encounter back-to-back highway patrols on the Old Harbour Road, the Junction Road, the St. Thomas Road and elsewhere in the island.
Over the years some really bad, bad men have sprung up to terrorise the society. Dennis 'Copper' Barth, Wayne 'Sandokhan' Smith, and Nathaniel 'Natty' Morgan of recent notoriety, come to mind.
But the 'Most Wanted' list issued by the police every so often, is never going to be short of names. So the police kills a Natty Morgan today, but another of equal violent bent springs up in the not-too-distant future. And it seems that every few months there is a flare-up of deadly violence in some inner-city area of the Corporate Area of Kingston and St. Andrew or elsewhere in the island. Witness the goings on in recent times in Mountain View Avenue, south east St. Andrew; in Arnett Gardens, south St. Andrew; in Canterbury, St. James. And for two days recently, gunmen in Spanish Town, central St. Catherine, locked down the Old Capital tighter than a sardine tin.
Too often the Constabulary Communication Network reports the slaying by the police of a man who had hitherto been unheard of, only for the public to be told that the man had been 'wanted' for a long list of murders and other crimes and that with his death, the files on a dozen crimes he had committed, have been closed. The extra-judicial killing of such suspects should really be the last resort, as the police, in capturing the fugitive alive would often stand a better chance of getting to the root of whatever crimes were being investigated. They kill their best sources of intelligence and information. So they don't know who the criminals' cohorts are, and the gang remains pretty much intact.
EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLINGS
There are some policemen who would seek to justify extra-judicial killings by arguing that that is their only recourse as more often that not, the courts free the accused at their trial. And many citizens agree with them. But when these cases are thrown out it is usually the result of poor investigation, based on flimsy evidence presented by the police themselves to judge or jury.
For example, look at the farce of a case presented in July 2003, with nine men charged with conspiracy to traffic drugs after persons were seen loading packages on to an airplane at Tinson Pen aerodrome, Marcus Garvey Drive, Kingston. They were freed on January 13, 2004, after Resident Magistrate Kissock Laing in the Criminal Court at Half-Way Tree, refused to grant an order to proceed to trial.
After the allegations in the case were outlined to the court, the Resident Magistrate said he was not going to grant an order for an indictment to proceed to trial because he was not satisfied that the evidence which the Crown proposed to present was sufficient to infer that a conspiracy existed.
He further pointed out that no drugs were found. He said that in the absence of drugs, there was no other evidence from which it could be inferred that the alleged offences of possession of, attempting to export, dealing or trafficking in drugs had taken place.
The head of the Police Narcotics Division was reported to have classified the decision to throw out the case as "a victory for the drug trafficking community." But it was a victory given by the narcotics police themselves. For how could a Magistrate be expected to convict on the basis of such hearsay an accused saying he was convinced that packages he saw had either ganja or cocaine. Did the police present even an ounce of ganja or cocaine from the plane as exhibit? The police just have to learn to build their cases painstakingly and properly and seamlessly.
HEARTLESS CRIMINALS
But let's face it, the Jamaican criminal can be a really frightening fellow. This is a country where men have gone in boats to ships docked in the Kingston Harbour and held up the crews with M-16 assault rifles. This is a country where criminals have killed even babes on the breast. Patients and police in hospital. Police in the safety of their police stations. They kill police at crowded intersections in broad daylight. And there is a new type of criminal. The men who staged a big kidnapping recently, even went on the Internet to buy goods with their victim's credit cards.
And we haven't even begun to tackle the white-collar criminals.
There is something frighteningly wrong when gunmen can feel so free, so confident, so safe, and so emboldened, so assured by a feeling of impunity, that they can rob and murder in broad daylight in crowded places, without the least fear that they will ever be caught. It shows an almost derisive contempt for the authorities, the police, the Government and the law-abiding society at large.
