Police clear road blocks in May Pen in August 2006, following demonstrations which shut down the town. - Nathaniel Stewart/Freelance Photographer

Daraine Luton, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

Police and residents alike call them foreigners. Unwelcomed, these unannounced 'visitors' to rural towns and communities often take nothing with them but trouble. The issue of migratory criminals is a sore point for communities and law enforcers.

Some Corporate Area criminals, hot on the police's or fellow criminals' wanted lists, are escaping to rural areas to carry out their illegal activities. Some of these men stay just for a few days, others spend weeks, months or even years, and when they leave, very often bloodstains are the only marks left behind.

As far back as 2001, then Commissioner of Police, Francis Forbes, implored rural cops to stamp out migratory criminals. Forbes said then that Clarendon was one of the favoured areas for criminals from the Corporate Area, noting that many crimes there were being committed by outsiders.

"Migratory criminals is a significant problem," Glenmuir Hinds, assistant commissioner of police (ACP) in charge of the elite police unit, Kingfish, told The Sunday Gleaner. "It is a concern to us," he said, noting that very often, migratory criminals established contacts while in jail or prison, and maintain those contacts through acts of criminality.

Unarmed

Another practice of migratory criminals is that they tend to leave their communities unarmed, pick up arms in other communities, commit crimes and then return, unarmed, to their communities. This, ACP Hinds says, is done to elude police spot-checks androad policing.

But how widespread is the problem? The developing parishes of Clarendon and St. Ann are often affected by the migration even though it is manifested slightly differently in both parishes. "Where there are developments, like in St. Ann, we tend to see that there is movement of a number of men from the Corporate Area to seek employment and not all of these men are of good repute," ACP Hinds said.

In Clarendon, men lodge in informal communities such as Sandy Bay, which is used as a base to mount criminal activities. The presence of the Vernamfield airstrip, a major transhipment point for drugs, also attracts drug players to the parish.

Superintendent Radcliffe Lewis, divisional commander in charge of Clarendon, admitted that his parish is targeted by criminals and adds that "migration has been contributing significantly to a number of serious crimes in this division". Also, "on a number of occasions, when there is gang warfare in communities, criminals from say, Spanish Town, will come in to defend a gang against another gang," the superintendent said.

Such a situation has played itself out in recent weeks, with the shooting deaths of two persons and the injuring of two others in the parish. Two houses were also destroyed by fire in what The Sunday Gleaner understands to be an extension of an "England drug war" being played out there, and in which Corporate Area men are believed to be playing a role.

Located in central Jamaica, Clarendon's capital, May Pen, has been undergoing steady development, especially in construction and manufacturing. Highway 2000, which reduces the journey from Spanish Town to May Pen to 20 minutes, has made commuting easier for would-be criminals.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) in charge of crime in St. Ann, Bertrand Lee, said that the types of criminals who haunt the parish are not those who visit and stay, but those who come in and leave almost immediately after they have committed an act. "The concerns that we have for serious crimes are with people who drive. We have gangs coming out of Clarendon, St. Catherine and the Corporate Area," he told The Sunday Gleaner, adding that more road policing is the strategy to intercept and catch these itinerant criminals.

Moving to the hills

In the recent past, many of the island's most-wanted men were found in other communities after fleeing their turf as the police closed in on them. 'Giddeon Warriors' leader, Joel Andem, who was Jamaica's most-wanted man for over four years, was caught in St. Ann. His successor, Kevin 'Richie Poo' Tyndale, who took over the Gideon Warriors after Andem was caught, fled to Black Shop, in St. James, where he was cornered by police. Ricardo 'Jah Jah' Gordon, the reputed crime boss of Homestead, fled his Spanish Town base for the hills of Bethel Town, Westmoreland. Donovan 'Bulbie' Bennett, then leader of the notorious Spanish Town-based 'Clansman' gang, chose Clarendon, where he died.

While it is unclear how much crime these men have committed in their adopted community, the police have noted that migratory criminals pose a significant problem, and only with active community intervention can it be successfully fought.