Policemen and onlookers at the murder scene of two policemen killed in Trench Town on Friday, May 23. Trench Town is one of the many inner-city garrisons where violence flares from time to time. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer

The following is an abridged excerpt from a forthcoming book by Prof Anthony Harriott based on his research.

THE PROBLEM

The most important features of Jamaican organised crime and ideas that are of relevance to a control strategy are as follows:

It responds to the demand for illicit goods and services such as drugs.

It provides protective services to local businesses and commu-nities in areas that are under policed and/or improperly policed.

It is attached to local territory but is also transnational.

It is rooted in a special type of territorial and protective community relationship that is most intensely manifested in the garrisons.

There is a developing differentiation between entre-preneurial elements and specialists in violence. Differen-tiation may be a response to the extended range of illegal opportunities in conditions where, with some exceptions, this wide range of opportunities is not available to each group.

It has penetrated the political parties and established special interdependent relationships with elements within their leadership structures.

It has established plain parasitic as well as mutually supportive relationships with legitimate business.

It operates in a climate that is socially facilitating.

Measures of success

These features serve to specify aspects of the problem that may be treated as targets for action and elements that may be used to shape a strategic response to the challenges presented by organised crime. Dissecting the problem in this way also helps to clarify the appropriate measures of success or the desired outcomes of the prevention and control processes. For example, dismantling the garrisons, that is, removing the protective shield that is provided by the relationship of organised crime with the communities would be one measure of problem-solving success. Weakening or severing its links with the political parties would be another.

Convictions are an important measure of success in dealing with particular groups, but should not be treated as such in dealing with organised crime as a general phenomenon. For example, the conviction of the leaders of a particular group may lead to the strengthening of a competitor group or the formation of a number of splinter groups from the remnants of the original group. Convictions are thus means of achieving the outcomes listed above, not ends in themselves.

Even short-term changes in crime rates may not be true measures of success. Lower robbery rates, for example, may be the outcome of successful pro-tection and extortion rackets and may therefore indicate the increasing power of organised crime groups, not improved public safety.

Despite this cautionary note, it must be understood that law enforcement, nevertheless, remains the main means used to control organised crime. Law enforcement approaches tend to be based on tactics that target the activities and organisational features of the crime groups with a view to decapitating and disrupting them case by case and group by group. For example, law enforcement may track the patterns of communication within and by the group in order to implicate the top leadership and thereby try to cripple the organi-sation. This may be described as 'head-hunting' when it is done without sufficient regard for law and as 'targeting-up' when it is more lawfully executed. Some of the methods of targeting-up famously include plea-bargaining (which is not legally permitted in Jamaica) and prosecution for tax violations.

When applied to the more flexible Jamaican organised crime groups, head-hunting and targeting-up are unlikely to be as effective. The Jamaican experience suggests that the leaders are easily replaced and that despite their occasional removal by death, arrests and convictions, the organisations persist and may even multiply. Their relationship to territory as sites of the social conditions and the political relationships that reproduce the phenomenon explain this.

The resilience of organised crime rests on its deeply rooted relationships, especially its relationship to the urban commu-nities and to the political parties. This is evident in the very public displays of collective grieving, such as draping utility poles with black flags, lining the streets with candles that are lit after dark, and especially the organisation of the funeral as a show of solidarity.

Elements of a strategy

Jamaican organised crime is still evolving; it has not yet reached a mature stage. The idea is to disrupt the processes that empower organised crime and thereby make it more vulnerable to law enforcement. This approach allows us to distinguish the sources of organised crime from the more general sources of violent crime and to give the former a more focused treatment.

Disrupting and severing relationships

Relationships are the main sources of the success of organised crime. These relationships provide it with opportunities, give it the degrees of freedom needed to be able to successfully adapt to changes in the security environment, and nurture the process of maturation.

Cutting relationships with private business

The partnerships with private business firms and relationships with the formal economic institutions that are crime reproducing should also be (and indeed are) targets of any control strategy.

Cutting relationships with law enforcement

The ability to cut relationships assumes a capable and effective system of law enforcement and criminal justice. If this does not exist, as is the case in Jamaica, then developing such a system ought to be an essential part of the process.

Cutting relationships with political parties

Cutting relationships to political parties and politicians ought to involve cutting off the flow of money in both directions, that is, from the party in power (at the national and local government levels) to organised crime as state contracts and subcontracts, and from organised crime to the parties as campaign financing and community programmes. Facili-tating the access of organised crime firms to state contracts and subcontracts ought to be defined as a crime of conspiracy. The political parties must be made to pay a political price for their association with organised crime.

Anthony Harriott is professor of political sociology at the University of the West Indies, director of the Institute of Criminal Justice and Security and head of the Department of Government.