Editorial | The big fish and gangs

This newspaper welcomes the pledge by the Jamaican authorities to aggressively go after the island’s criminal gangs, whose organisational and operational sophistication, Prime Minister Andrew Holness says, is often underestimated.

But even as we embrace this anti-gang mission, The Gleaner also looks forward to similar zeal in going after and prosecuting white-collar racketeers, who many Jamaicans believe get insufficient attention. One consequence of this is the deeply held view of poorer Jamaicans, of class divide in how law and justice are administered in the island, with one set of rules for them, and another, more benign standard for the rich and well-to-do and often better-educated uptowners.

This perception of inequity erodes trust in leaders and institutions, and weakens the country’s ability to forge the consensus required for it to address some of its most intractable problems, including crime. Which is why we look forward to additions to the profile of the demographic of people who usually find themselves before the criminal justice system.

While the police reported a nearly 11 per cent decline in major offences in 2023, Jamaica still faces a debilitating crisis of crime, especially violent ones. For instance, the approximately eight per cent decline in murders last year translates to 1,393 reported cases, for a homicide rate of nearly 51 per 100,000.

According to the police, 67 per cent of the killings were related to gang activity, ranging from intra- and inter-gang disputes to contract killings. But the figure, they say, was down from 72 per cent two years ago, and nearer to 80 per cent as recently as 2018.

These changed statistics, the police argue, represent the fruits of their anti-gang initiatives, including big prosecutions under the island’s anti-gang laws, of which, according to Fitz Bailey, the deputy commissioner of police for crime, there are more to come.

ALLEGED GANG MEMBERS ARRESTED

Last week, 31 alleged members of the island’s most notorious gang, Klansman, were arrested across the parish of St Catherine and expected to be charged for being members of a criminal organisation, and other crimes.

Last year, 15 members of the ‘One Don’ faction of the same gang, including their leader, Andre ‘Blackman’ Bryan, were sent to jail for various terms after a trial that began with 33 accused gangsters. The police say Klansman factions have been linked to at least 800 killings in the past decade.

“The JCF (Jamaica Constabulary Force) will continue its focus on disrupting criminal organisations wherever they are identified,” Bailey said. “We will use our skills, competencies and technologies in our quest to create a secure environment for our citizens.”

If Prime Minister Holness is correct about the depth of the organisational structures and criminal entrepreneurialism of some gangs, they have moved beyond the muscled crudeness of the past.

“There may be a sense in some quarters of our country that the gangs are street-level problem(s),” he told The Observer newspaper. “While there are some low-level criminal organisations, there are several sophisticated operations whose business is to organise violence in pursuit of criminal enterprise. They pose a threat, not only to citizens in communities, but to the security of the State as well when they compromise our financial and banking systems, our Customs and border, and our law-enforcement, and approvals and permitting systems.”

This largely echoes Mr Holness’ remarks of two and half years ago, at the opening of the police station in the Kingston community of Olympic Gardens, about the evolution of gangs.

Poor, marginalised and mostly undereducated youth were often co-opted with access to guns to be part of burgeoning criminal enterprises.

PEOPLE WITH RESOURCES

Holness suggested that their recruiters were people with resources. “In poor areas where people can’t buy breakfast, how [do] they find money to buy guns?” he asked. “Where does it come from?”

Seemingly implicit in Mr Holness’ rhetorical question is that while some gangs have their roots in the communities they operate, they are sometimes ceded by external forces to facilitate their own ends. However, this presumably well-heeled set are not usually the ilk in the docks when gang members are tried for crimes, or arrested for gun and drugs. Mostly, it is poor, street-level, marginalised youth – the manipulated foot soldiers.

It is estimated that the crime cost to the country is around five per cent of its gross domestic product annually, which, at the current size of the economy, translates to nearly J$150 billion. There is a similar estimate for the cost of corruption, although there would be overlaps between that cost and that for other elements of criminality. Most of that money does not flow to Klansman and similar gangs on Mr Bailey’s radar.

What is obvious, though, is that there are direct and immediate economic benefits to be gained from a reduction of crime and corruption – and not just that which is perpetrated by the publicly identified gangs and their known leaders. Upper-echelon racketeers, too, must be brought to book. Which was expected to be a primary task of the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency, a supposedly elite, independent investigative body. Its known results, so far, are not impressive.

Catching the big fish will help to build support for, and confidence in, the other crime-fighting efforts.