Jason Robinson | Combating organised crime …The lessons to be learnt from the states of public emergency

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programmes by their intentions rather than their results” – Milton Friedman

Murders committed by organised crime groups continue to have a devastating impact on many Jamaicans as well as the economy. Police data show that approximately 1,117 persons were murdered in 2011; 1,085 in 2012; 1,190 in 2013; 1,005 in 2014; and 1,192 in 2015 – totaling approximately 5,589 over a five-year period, most of which were categorized as gang-related or reprisal killings.

The March 2016 victory of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) was a turning point in Jamaica as well as the delight to many, me included.

Why? Prime Minster Andrew Holness had promised us that we would be able to sleep with our doors open, if the JLP was given the chance to govern. However, this was short-lived when approximately 114 murders were recorded in 20 days in the summer of 2017, and it became very clear that the country had a murder crisis.

According to InSight Crime, the year 2017 ended with 45 multiple killings – 37 double murders, six triple murders, and two quadruple murders, resulting in a 20 per cent increase in murders overall.

It was time for the prime minister to act decisively if he wanted to keep his promise.

In January 2018, the prime minister, with good intentions, acted on the advice of the head of the security forces and declared states of public emergency for certain sections of Jamaica – granting the military and the police enhanced powers to reduce murders and put a dent in organised crime.

Many hoped that this enhanced security measure would have provided the silver bullet. However, the complexity of Jamaica’s organised crime problem has become even more complex because of the one-size-fits-all approach to crime over the last four decades ,and continues today.

ORGANISED CRIME HAS NO BOUNDARY

As of December 11, 2019, police data show that the country has recorded 1,264 murders, a figure which is projected to increase.

The states of public emergency were declared with good intentions; however, had there been a better assessment of our complex crime problem, they could have been more effective.

Each police division comes with its own set of challenges with organised crime, and combating this type of crime requires targeted planning, analytical evaluation, knowledge about criminology, and expertise to design and implement strategies that best meet these challenges.

Resources should have been utilised to form sufficiently staffed and well-equipped gang-targeting units in each police division, which would have been complemented by carefully vetted police, military, and civilian personnel, whose role it would be to target, document, monitor, disrupt, and convict members of organised crime groups and their associates, while gathering valuable intelligence on them.

The murder figures over the last nine years should serve as a reminder to citizens, political parties, national security practitioners, civil society, and private-sector stakeholders that organised crime has no boundary. Therefore, it is up to all of us to make Jamaica a safer place to live, work, raise families and do business.

Jason Robinson is a former organised crime investigator and a graduate of The Caribbean Maritime University. He holds a master of science in security administration and management. Email feedback to jasona_robinson78@yahoo.com and columns@gleanerjm.com.