Crooks

NATIONAL SECURITY ministers have always been held captive to the passing theories of establishment crime control planners and anecdotal evidence of the police high command. These range from ganja during the 1940s to early '70s. Invalidated police statistics was the catalyst for our ganja laws. Thereafter, narco-trafficking came to the fore along with domestic violence and gangs. They have been the bases of ministerial rhetoric and grand pronouncements during periods of moral panic.

Our academics, instead, point to our toxic political culture, a large criminal economy with it's illegitimate opportunity structure and dysfunctional families (Grey, Robotham, Headley, Harriott et al). Some seemingly incomplete research by Anthony Harriot underplays the contribution of the family and overplays the contribution of organised crime to our murder rate.

So, while National Security Minister Dwight Nelson, and shadow minister Peter Bunting pander to our fear of violent crime in their parliamentary presentations, they have avoided many important policy issues. Some include legislation and police action to control violent and disorderly behaviour in our public spaces; introducing ethics-based behaviour into all aspects of policing; improving police service delivery; upgrading criminal intelligence and measures to address the issue of extra judicial murders by the police or our perception thereof.

Parliamentary debate

The recent parliamentary debate on national security also revealed that community policing is off the policy agenda, even though, the police are still struggling to embed this method of policing into the organisation after three decades. So, today the core purpose of community crime reduction as a way of doing everyday police business has escaped from policymakers and crime-control planners alike. This failure is doing little to help correct the unsatisfactory relations between our police and communities.

Thirty years ago, the aim was that community policing was to have permeated the entire police organisation. It now subsists under the rubric of Community Safety and Security, marketed by Britain's police and organised there around strong local government partnership which is regarded as critical there (See the Morgan Report: Standing Conference on Crime Prevention, 1991) but which is not the case in Jamaica. This new variant, along with other influences, has spawned a plethora of paper pushing administrators in a police force where 3,992 managers and supervisors are supposedly 'overseeing' 4154 constables. Despite the prevalence of domestic violence there was no mention in the debates of legislative initiatives and a wider array of early community intervention mechanisms to prevent incipient familial violence from escalating into murder beyond the outmoded provisions of the Domestic Violence Act. In many respects, we remain isolated in the backwaters from successful crime control initiatives around the world some of which could work here.

Constitutional issues

Immediately after the birth of our political parties they began making a significant contribution to criminal violence and gun crimes (See The Hearne Commission Report, 1949). They later constructed garrisons as part of their housing/criminal policy and appointed their dons over whom they now have little control. Rather than cooperating now to ensure our safety they bicker and argue over constitutional issues.

Since the State will degenerate if left to rulers alone, it is time to convene a national bi-partisan/non-partisan Crime Control Council with some teeth along the model of the Electoral Commission of Jamaica, so we can take the politics out of crime and crime out of politics. This would empower us to get on with the business of improving public safety and safeguarding our economy.

As our Government and opposition party argue behind iron gates, they have approached a roadblock in their search for more effective crime-control strategies. The irony is that shadow minister Peter Bunting approved the Jamaica Labour Party-commissioned 'Roadmap to a Safe and Secure Jamaica' in Parliament, and our Government has accepted all the recommendations of the People's National Party (PNP)-initiated Strategic Review of our the Jamaica Constabulary Force. This erosion of our public safety is due to differences between our government and the opposition over the issue of constitutional reform and the amendments necessary to introduce some fundamental advances in crime control and policing.