Ian Boyne

We tend to move from one extreme to the other. From neglecting social intervention for hard policing to now seeing social intervention as a panacea in crime fighting when we have an emergency on our hands which demands effective policing strategies. Social intervention alone can't deal with that brazen terrorist who pumped bullets into that woman at York Plaza, Half-Way Tree, last week.

The ferocious creatures who will kill a man in broad daylight, and with hundreds of witnesses, over J$50, and who will shoot a bus driver dead even in a police station, for "bad man no fraid a police" cannot be dealt with by social intervention.

But it seems the Government is getting the message. Newly appointed Minister of National Security Trevor MacMillan, who after his swearing-in paraded his human rights credentials as a founding member of Jamaicans for Justice, nevertheless said "there are some animals out there and they have to be caged."

Only he could get away with those statements without being clobbered by the vociferous human rights community. It is good to know that he understands this and has sent this message at the very start of his tenure. No one will accuse him on the talk shows of responding with "panic" and using indelicate language to refer to human beings endowed with inalienable rights.

massive job

While conceding to "even the human rights of a gunman", he nevertheless said "The fact of life is that the police have a massive job to do," and we understand what he is trying to say. He understands that while social intervention is absolutely critical, raw policing has to be primary in arresting the scourge of violence gripping the country.

I was relieved to hear the prime minister say at that swearing-in also that "Even while we tackle that (social problems) in a more concerted, more deliberate way, we cannot say to the criminals that 'we are working on the causes, so we soon come." That is how my prime minister and minister of national security must talk - and even tougher - and that is the balance they must exhibit if we are to have any hope of reducing our appalling murder rate.

Minister of National Security, Colonel Trevor MacMillan

MacMillan has an excellent place to start if he is to succeed in his new assignment: His own crime report commissioned by his boss, then Opposition Leader Bruce Golding and finalised as Road Map to a Safe and Secure Jamaica (2006). It is one of the finest crime reports done and is unique in its programmatic recommendations. This report tackles all the key issues aside from, glaringly, the issue of values and attitudes - but that really goes without saying. The recommendations for crushing organised crime and for breaking the links between criminality and politics should be pursued right away, Mr Minister.

no pact

Social intervention is great and long overdue. It is absolutely indispensable and must be coordinates in the way the report suggests. But social intervention will still leave the criminal networks and donmanship in place unless there are deliberate, concrete steps to crush that. I disagree with columnist Mark Wignall about entering into any sort of pact with the dons, however pragmatically. There is no media commentator whose street smarts and realism I respect more than Mark Wignall's.

But Mark must know that what we need to do is to break the power and stranglehold of the dons, not negotiate power-sharing arrangements with them.

If Mark and others feel that we are hopeless in the face of the dons' terror tactics and links with the political class, see Hume Johnson's excellent research contained in her paper, Towards De-garrisonisation in Jamaica: A Place for Civil Society delivered at the recent University the West Indies (UWI) symposium on garrisons. She showed the success which has been recorded against the Italian and American Mafia, whose operations are similar to our criminal dons and their networks. There is hope once we are united and civil society exerts its role. We can't depend on the politicians to do it.

man of action

One reason there are such high hopes associated with Trevor MacMillan's assumption of the security ministry is that he is seen not as a politician, just a no-nonsense, tough, uncompromising man who is a man of action.

Two critical ways of demobilising the criminal networks, says the Road Map, is cutting the links between political parties, the state and the criminal networks, and tackling police corruption. The dons get their wealth from the contracts which politicians give them. We have allowed areas to be Balkanised for extortion, with certain dons and their 'soldiers' controlling certain areas and running big state projects. This cannot continue if we are to combat crime. No amount of social intervention is going to stop that.

Social intervention plays a pivotal role in cutting off the supply of human resources for the dons: That is, they will have fewer 'soldiers' if more youth have opportunities through social intervention programmes. Many of the youth who get involved in crime do so through economic pressure and social deprivation. They are not born dog-heart and they are not all lazy good-for-nothing bums. They will choose the straight path if assisted.

The social intervention programmes are an excellent means of cutting off the labour supply to the criminal dons. But keep this in mind: Dons rule not just through economic inducement but through fear and terror. That is, they might not be able to force the youth to join them, but they will still have the power to carry out their criminality, knowing that community members dare not report them for they know that 'informer fi dead' and that they will be burnt out and their relatives killed if they talk.

We underestimate the terror under which people in the garrisons live and the real obstacles they encounter in giving information to the police. Community policing in some instances might not help but actually endanger people's lives, as in some communities to be seen talking to policemen is to invite murder. You can't seem too friendly with 'Babylon'.

skills training

So your garbage might be collected, your sewer mains fixed, your children's schools and health centres modernised through social intervention programmes. You might have skills training for your youth, good parenting programmes and fine conflict resolution and values and attitudes classes. Your community might be quiet and under order, with no rapes, no murders, no robberies, but you dare not tell the police what you know about the criminals who use your community as safe havens to wage war in any parish they wish.

The criminal networks and the power of the dons have to be broken. Brokering deals with dons is a dangerous and desperate short-term measure which only gives the dons time to wheel and come again.

Reconsider this. The money which the dons and area leaders get through their contracts for Government projects, and which politicians broker for them when private sector people need to build, only consolidate their economic power over poor ghetto people.

de-garrisoning

As the Macmillan Report on crime says, "De-garrisoning is thus an important element in any strategy to crush organised crime." Further, the report says forthrightly, "Perhaps the most critical facilitator of high-end crime is the corrupt link with party functionaries. A special set of anti-corruption measures are therefore directed at weakening and breaking these links."

I remind Colonel MacMillan of these words right at the start of his tenure. We are expecting you, minister, to walk the talk now that you have policy-making authority. The country is depending on you for this.

I remind Colonel MacMillan also of these words from his report: "The code of conduct for politicians should include a prohibition of all conduct that reinforces crime and all forms of violence. This includes symbolic reinforcement, such as attending the funerals of persons of criminal repute, approvingly associating with them in the constituencies and other settings, and performing songs that are supportive of violence on political platforms. These types of behaviour should be monitored by the political ombudsman."

no excuse

Now that we might have some libel reform, the press itself has no excuse not to expose those politicians who have links to criminal elements and who cavort with them.

Intelligence expertise, a greater reliance on science and technology, along with legislative changes to enhance our ability to put away criminals, must be pursued as a matter of top urgency, along with social intervention programmes. Relying on witnesses in a context where we would not only have to protect the witnesses themselves but every relative, friend and community member of the witness is totally unrealistic. Witness protection programme? Some people would prefer if they were killed rather than their relatives, and the criminals have been adept at killing both them and their relatives. Can we protect everybody?

The state must find effective ways of putting away criminals and in increasing the chances of their being caught. This is why the discussion about capital punishment in the Jamaican context is an absolute waste of time and supremely foolish.

'informer-fi-dead' mantra

Why are we debating the merits of capital punishment when criminals know that even when they are seen in Half-Way Tree in daylight their chances of being put away are next to nil? The problem is "caging these animals" in the first place, to use the minister's phrase. Our dancehall culture reinforces the "informer-fi-dead" mantra and that, along with the sheer brutality and wantonness of the murderers, ensures that many criminals, even when caught, can't be kept in jail for many who love their lives and those of their relatives will not want to come forward. We have to find a way around this.

Social intervention programmes can only be a part of a multi-pronged strategic approach to fight crime. As a progressive, I am happy that the needs of the masses will finally get full national attention and that the PNP, JLP, private sector and civil society are united on the fact that the poor cannot be neglected while we build neoliberal capitalism. But don't leave the other things undone.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com