Major Basil Jarrett | I have a tip for you

Happy New Year, Jamaica. Though by all indications, 2023 may not be any happier than last year or the year before, given this country’s obsession with breaking its murder rate record year-on-year. Last year, Jamaica recorded 1,498 murders. That’s 24 more homicides, compared to 2021. Scamming central, St James, led all comers with 198 homicides, followed by St Catherine North with 145, Westmoreland 140, St Andrew South 131, and St Catherine South 113. According to Police Chief Major General Antony Anderson, 87 per cent of those murders were either gang-related or arose out of conflicts with known persons. In making the pronouncements, Major General Anderson underscored the point that somehow, Jamaicans simply refuse to find peaceable ways to resolve their differences.

Despite the gravity of the situation and our persisting struggles with taming the crime beast in 2022, one particular murder incident last year gave me pause, and ironically enough, hope. The incident involved the murder of four University of Idaho students – Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, who were found stabbed to death in their home in Moscow, Idaho, USA. Yes, in a story about Jamaica’s murder rate, I just referenced an incident in the United States.

SIX-WEEK MURDER MYSTERY

This is because, despite the tragedy and gruesomeness of the crime, a subtle yet critical side story that many persons may have missed is that the crime was solved and an arrest made just six weeks after the roommates were first found dead.

The suspect, 28-year-old student Bryan Kohberger, was arrested in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, on December 30 and is facing four counts of first-degree murder and felony burglary. While investigators did praise the use of forensic analysis to link Kohberger to the crime scene, they were more effusive in their praise and recognition for the over 19,000 tips they received and the over 300 interviews that they conducted with persons from the community. The police thanked the community, other law-enforcement bodies, news media, and hundreds of people around the country who brought in information to assist the investigation.

Nineteen thousand tips and 300 interviews in six weeks. This is how a responsible and responsive community works to support law and order and to bring back sanity to their society.

PRINCIPLE, COURAGE AND FRUSTRATION

I believe that this is largely what’s missing from our crime-fighting picture here in Jamaica: Principled people with the courage and desire to see a better country, and equally fed-up and frustrated with living behind burglar bars and navigating their lives around curfew hours and movement restrictions.

Encouragingly, there are signs that this is changing. The Jamaica Constabulary Force has reported on the incredible success of its social media campaign in driving tips to investigators. Similarly, tip-collecting star boys, Crime Stop, noted last year that in 2021, there was an increase in the number of calls to the tipster line over the previous year. Twenty-eight per cent of those calls were related to illegal firearms and ammunition, 25 per cent for gunmen, seven per cent for wanted persons, six per cent for narcotics, 5.5 per cent for lottery scamming, and five per cent for murder. The calls led to 67 arrests for various crimes, including murder, illegal possession of firearms, and illegal possession of drugs. The success-to-calls ratio stood at 1:8, as 36 illegal firearms and 582 rounds of ammunition were recovered that year.

KEEP YOUR CASH

And although Crime Stop has paid out some $55.1 million in rewards since its inception, the vast majority of anonymous tipsters do not ask for nor follow up for a reward. My interpretation of this is that these people are more interested in cleaning up this country than they are with collecting a monetary reward. And we thought patriotism was dead.

And as Crime Stop expands its service to support the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency’s anti-corruption efforts, we must be similarly encouraging of these other patriots to step up and play their part in helping to smash that other endemic problem that we have.

I believe that there is reason to be hopeful. Whatever you prefer to call them – tipsters, whistle-blowers, conscientious disclosers, or … hold your breath for this one ... informers (yes, I said it) – it is essential that as a society, we continue to protect, strengthen and empower persons to highlight wrongdoing and report these activities to the relevant channels. And yes, increases in our cyber forensics capabilities and the routine retrieval of DNA from crime scenes and recovered weapons, are important game changers that will help lead to more arrests and convictions.

But for the sheer value and ease with which tips can support intelligence gathering and investigations, there is possibly no lower-hanging fruit.

Major Basil Jarrett is a communications strategist and CEO of Artemis Consulting, a communications consulting firm specialising in crisis communications and reputation management.