Orville Taylor | Nah! We can still win this crime war

My arms are thrown up, but not in despair. It is a mark or defiance because I do not accept that crime in Jamaica has “evolved currently, over and above our established capacity to address it”.

Our Prime Minister the Right Hon Andrew ‘Brogad’ Holness made such an admission last week. In many ways this was a sort of reality check, because one of his campaign promises in 2016 was that Jamaicans would feel safer under his watch, essentially taking full responsibility for what was to come. If homicides had declined, he would’ve justifiably taken the credit. This was a brave declaration and clearly inspired by both good intentions as well as an overdose of adrenaline and other hormones. However, if we could wish away the crime and violence with our ambitions, Jamaica would be murder-free.

In dealing with the apparent crisis, he reports that “What we are doing now, in an intense way, is to put in place resources, systems, and personnel integrated with technology to address the crime situation.” Good, but it was never a simple fix. Nevertheless, while never as idealistic as Holness was in his campaign promise, I have never harboured a doubt that the security forces were and are still capable of taking on and managing the beast.

Flashback to 2001, when homicides had passed 1,000 for the first time in our history. I was having drinks with some elite members of the security and defence hierarchy. One very lucid and fearless leader, who noticed that I was improperly dressed without a glass in my hand, nudged me and told me that my nervousness about the alcohol content was unfounded. After all, there was no such thing as strong drink. Rather, there were only weak men. As that analysis took time more time to swallow than the drink itself, it hit me that this monster called violence and homicides were growing ‘out of control.’

In the wake of a find of a large cache of high-powered weapons, I repeated the grand narrative that the ‘security forces were outgunned!’ There are very few moments when I feel stupid or experience an episode of ‘foot in mouth disease’, but that was one. With a tone that bordered on condescension, I was softly but firmly rebuffed with the assertion that there was no place that the military and police together could not reach and control effectively. Nothing has changed in the past 20 years to disabuse me of this opinion. And call it misplaced or overly optimistic, I still have my money placed on the House of Babylon in this battle to keep Jamaica out of the hands of criminals … at all levels.

True, the usage of soldiers as additional boots on the ground gives more resources and manpower. However, there is a big difference between providing security and solving crime.Any realistic strategy must involve retrieving intelligence, obtaining information, catching the suspects, assembling evidence, prosecuting the offender and convicting him if guilty. In other words, ‘policing’. Any variance from a police-based crime plan will never work, unless we turn this country into a large undemocratic concentration camp. There is no overall military solution.

Having said that then, let me be unambiguous here. A war on crime must begin with a well-motivated police force, peopled by a set of engaged officers, who feel that their efforts are appreciated. Despite the military dress that they wear, police are not soldiers and are inspired differently. Cops have individual responsibility for their behaviour. Thus, rather than a soldier who gets clear guidelines regarding his remit when on the street, Office Dibble has to constantly weigh the pros and cons while mitigating it with his discretion.

DECENT WORK

Beyond the narrow concerns raised by the Jamaica Police Federation and Police Officers’ Association, in the collective bargaining process, cops must experience ‘decent work.’ You cannot give a hungry man food to cook or share. Psychological and sociological research demonstrate that ‘abused’ workers pass on the abuse to their clients. On the other hand, workers whose efforts count will go the extra kilometre in delivering service. Take it as a fact. The extreme conditions which come with states of public emergency (SOPE) put all kinds of pressure on the security forces. If soldiers are cracking now, what of the police, who are less accustomed to hardships when the SOPE is dropped on them?

As I said in several columns earlier, we need to have a constabulary where the average recruit knows that he has a viable career path, with good prospects of upward mobility in the organisation and being able to watch both the rank and the bank. More important, he must know that when he completes his 25 years of service, he can say farewell without begging for welfare.

Yet, policing is only part of the solution. This country has a large cadre of disengaged youth, where male youth unemployment is three times the national average. Professor Errol Miller warned almost 30 years ago that men were at risk. It is the same cohort of males who have been disappearing from the universities, teachers colleges and community colleges, who are the main assailants and victims in homicides. If we run a statistical model, we can clearly see a correlation between the reduction in post-secondary enrolment of young males and the increase in homicide and other acts of violence.

As simple as it sounds, males with post-secondary education are less likely to join gangs, possess illegal firearms and murder, even if unemployed. Believe it or not, if we adopt the model of the community colleges, which leave no ambitious male behind and link that to the availability of training from HEART/NTA, the crime will trend downwards.

Of course, there are other factors which have to do with parenting and other variables. However, government cannot get into peoples’ homes and that is a slower more deliberate process.

But let’s get the boys into school. A mind is a dangerous thing to waste.

- Dr Orville Taylor is head of the Department of Sociology at the UWI, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com