Martin Henry, Contributor

Since the police cannot find the men on its most wanted list or among the leaders of the 150 gangs, which Kingfish ACP Glenmore Hinds estimates operate in the country, perhaps they should begin by detaining the organisers and participants in peace treaties.

These things, like the one at University of the West Indies (UWI) last week, are highly publicised and take place at announced locations and times, so locating those involved should not pose a difficulty, even for the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) whose clear-up rate for murder has sunk to 34 per cent.

I have to agree with columnist Vernon Daley who wrote last Tuesday, "But if the police can't find these dangerous men [on their most wanted list] in the first place, how will a power of preventive detention help in taking them off the streets?"

Peace treaties dangerous

Peace treaties are wrong and dangerous - and they have never worked. The pattern is clear: A pretence at peace until there is a reason for the war to resume.

The warriors of August Town, who signed last week, have insisted that they continue to bear arms as long as the weapons are not 'brandished'.

According to their UWI spokesperson, Horace Levy, the gangs had no intention of turning in their guns, "because it is a matter of their own protection, their own self-defence [as] they feel that the police are inefficient and ineffective."

And the gangsters are, unfortunately, right. The shameful failure of the Jamaican state to enforce law and order and to protect citizens from each other is lending legitimacy to militias and their peace treaties.

Dissing someone at a 'peace' dance, or chatting up the wrong girl, disagreement over spoils captured by the combined forces from the rest of society, or just sheer lust for blood influenced by drugs and jobless boredom will, in due course, terminate the peace. That has been a recurring decimal.

Peace treaties legitimate the state within the state. They convert criminals into soldiers and gang leaders into statesmen. But even more perniciously, peace treaties leave communities captive to criminal forces and deny justice.

Perhaps, the most important reason why peace treaties do not hold - and cannot hold - is the fact that unless justice is provided to the victims of crime and their families and friends, mere boys with guns at their disposal will continue to carry out reprisal killings, a leading motive for murder in Jamaica. Violence is inter-generational and inter-tribal, and peace treaties haven't broken that cycle.

Detain them

So, if peace treaties won't work, let us detain them. My friend and erudite colleague, Ian Boyne, heavily huffing and puffing in philosophy camouflage wants to get "certain notorious gunmen off the street right away through preventive detention. Must we as a society accept that these criminals must continue to be on the streets to kill again and again while we are trapped by our legalism?"

But no "heavy dose" of philosophy is required, the logic is actually ABC simple. If someone can, in fact, be identified as a 'notorious gunman', then arrest him and take him before the magistrate forthwith.

The counter-argument to this, which a leading spokesperson Professor Don Robotham puts forward at too great a length and frequency, is that we know, but we don't know.

So, let us cut some human rights to lock away those whom we know but don't know to be notorious criminals. And this is the real danger of trading rights for security.

The proponents of preventive detention never imagine themselves at the Horizon Remand Centre. But in an earlier dispensation, Levy and Robotham would have been prime targets for preventive detention. Boyne and Henry may be, in some future dispensation which regards us as security risks.

"Under preventive detention", the professor argues vociferously, "the aim would be to identify the very small group of people at the street level, the leaders of the extortion rings and the gruesome acts of violence and detain only these within street gangs. These leaders of murder are well known at the community level and the security forces also know who they are. So identifying them is not a huge problem."

So, assuming that these gangsters can, in fact, be apprehended for detention, why can't they be just as well arrested and brought before the magistrate forthwith, which is what the old principle of habeas corpus, 'present the body', requires.

Hardcore criminals

The truth is, the police have an entire arsenal under current laws for neutralising criminals - if they can at all manage to apprehend them. Many other jurisdictions have used the strategy of locking away hard criminals on lesser crimes for which they can be nailed now until the bigger matter has enough court-appropriate evidence for conviction.

Professional criminals are generally lawless. Multiple murderers smoke ganja, trade drugs, carry out robberies, and carnally abuse and impregnate under-aged girls. America contained the Mafia on this strategy. Forensic evidence is widely used elsewhere to replace human witnesses.

Judges in Jamaica routinely grant remand requests to the police based on available evidence presented, while cases are strengthened. The police absolutely must not be the remanders. We have seen the wicked abuse of that power here and elsewhere.

The police have the powers of search and of phone taps and call traces. It is the capacity and the will to pursue criminals into jail with hard intelligence which needs strengthening not the powers of the government and its police force to constrain and to abuse human rights.

Opposition watchdog

The genius of Western democracy which gave us habeas corpus as a sacred safeguard against illegal detention and imprisonment has also provided us with a parliamentary opposition.

I am very pleased with the stance that the People's National Party Opposition and its leader are taking on the issue. While the Government is primarily concerned with security, it is to the Opposition that we must look as the principal watchdog in the political system against abuses and restrictions of human rights.

Martin Henry is a communication consultant. Please send feedback to medhen@gmail.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.