Bernard Headley, Contributor

Headley

Ever since the United States (US), and later Great Britain, began repatriating Jamai-cans convicted of crimes they committed overseas, leaders of government, national security officials and the local media have been ascribing to them blame for the country's crime challenges.

The accusation has been levelled without any strong, supportive evidence. I have spent, over the course of the past five years, considerable academic energy trying to learn everything there is to know and understand about the deportee phenomenon. Based on the data that I have collected, I have been trying to dispel some of the more egregious and disquieting myths.

The deportee matter is particularly complex and confusing. But, so far, there are a number of things which are known and others we still do not know.

What we know

Here are six essential things we know:

1. Between 1996 and the end of 2007, approximately 40,000 Jamaicans who had lived in Great Britain, Canada and the United States were deported for criminal offences, from drug and immigration-related 'crimes' to assault and murder. This makes Jamaica the single country, in the world, with the highest ratio of deportees to overall population.

2. Since 2000, the US has been sending back to Jamaica an average of 1,200 convicted or 'criminal' deportees per year.

3. The US has expelled, to Jamaica, the largest number of violent offenders, deporting between 2001 and 2004 over 200 persons convicted for murder and another 128 for sexual assault, while the UK and Canada deported, between them, 24 murderers and 32 sex offenders.

4. On the whole, however, 81 per cent of the 'criminal' deportees are home again for conviction of non-violent crimes, mostly non-serious drug offences.

5. While there are some deportees who left Jamaica for the US at young ages (younger than 10 years old), and who were thus largely US-raised, these constitute a tiny minority of total deportees returned from America. Deportees' average age at time of first arrival in the US was a ripe 23 years old.

6. The average length of time that deportees convicted of a criminal offence had lived in the US, prior to deportation, was 12 years; most deportees then returning at ages when they are least likely to reoffend, that is, well into their late 30s and early 40s, and not, therefore, fitting the profile of an individual who is likely to be a violent criminal.

What we don't know

Each plane load of deportees could possibly include violent transnational drug dealers with crime bases in Jamaica or in the deporting country, or both. But we seldom know this on the day that deportees arrive back. That is because US authorities likely evicted them on conviction of a minor offence, something like possession of a small 'spliff', or running a traffic light.

It is possible that a minority of deportees is involved in criminal activity; but how many, and in what proportions, we do not know. An unrepresentative few deportees may be in positions of dominance over violent criminal gangs; but we just don't know.

The deporting countries are resolute about evicting Jamaicans whom they deem unfit (for whatever reason) to continue residing in their respective countries. We simply have to accept it and 'get over it'. The one essential thing to talk about then is: What opportunities can we now create for the resettlement and reintegration of some extremely damaged people? We need to carefully think and plan this out before today's badly damaged deportees become more of tomorrow's worsening crime problem.