Crime and disrupted government

Robert Buddan, Gleaner Writer

SIX CRIME bills were debated in Parliament on June 8. Coincidentally, by the end of May, Jamaica's murder rate had passed 750. Last year was a record year for murders. This year could be another. The end-of-May number was 99 more than that of the same period last year. Three years ago, June 2007, Dr Peter Phillips, then minister of national security, reported to parliament that after the then record year of murders in 2005, murder rates had declined in 2006 and so far for 2007.

Operation Kingfish had been launched in late 2004. In two and a half years, 340 gang members, leaders and masterminds had been brought in. This had significantly reduced Jamaica's role as a transit country for cocaine. Six suspected drug kingpins had been extradited or were awaiting extradition. We now know that 'Dudus' Coke was being investigated at the time. By October, an extradition request for him was known to be likely. We know this because Dr Phillips recently told Parliament that by October 2007, Golding had been briefed about this as the new prime minister.

Disrupted governance

This makes it even more perplexing that Jamaica suffered its most disrupted period of crime management between 2007 and the present, precisely when it most needed continuity and stability to consolidate the gains made. Since there was no continuity in government, there should have been continuity in governance. Instead, we have had three ministers of national security and three commissioners of police in just over two years.

How could the crime bills have had any effect under those circumstances, had they been passed initially? How could any crime plan have had any effect? Did the Government want to pursue Coke and his gang or did it want a disorganised ministry? Was this why even Colonel MacMillan's 'MacMillan Crime Plan' was not implemented by MacMillan? Was this why Commissioner Hardley Lewin thought that the whole argument about illegal wiretap evidence was a red herring? Was the Ministry of Justice working against, rather than with, the Ministry of National Security?

Let us review this. Dr Phillips said in the motion of no-confidence debate that Golding had been briefed about investigations that could lead to an extradition request for Coke. Coke was heard from wiretap evidence around the same time, saying that he had heard that an indictment against him was coming down. Peter Bunting and Peter Phillips said that it was their experience that only a few highly placed persons in authority would know this. The Government said the wiretap evidence was illegal and then went searching for 'Constable Red Herring', rather than for Coke.

Ministers came and went. Commissioners came and went. No one could run the ministry or its crime plans long enough to achieve anything. Were they supposed to? Commissioner Lewin said there was a conspiracy to remove him. Why did the Cabinet lose confidence in Lewin and what exactly did it mean by 'confidence'. Was the dismissal a matter of confidence or conspiracy?

We must ask what the Cabinet knew. Did it know the whole truth? Did Golding tell the Cabinet that an indictment was coming against Coke? Did it know that Golding had sanctioned the decision to retain Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to head off the process? If the Cabinet is to share collective responsibility, a vital Westminster convention, it needed to have all the pertinent information to properly say it had lost confidence in Commissioner Lewin? Did it and should it not lose confidence in Golding if the prime minister did not tell the Cabinet everything? Should the country lose confidence in the Cabinet if it joined in a conspiracy with Golding to dismiss the commissioner?

Probably while the security ministry was being disrupte,d the justice ministry was being obstructed. Professor Vasciannie's appointment as solicitor general was blocked at great expense of political capital. The Public Service Commission was dismissed in violation of the Constitution, at even greater political expense. The minister of justice and attorney general was threatened with dismissal, too, should she think of signing the order to proceed against Coke.

After nine months of disruption in and obstruction of government, 2009 became a new record year for murders. No wonder. The Government has found neither Mr Coke nor 'Constable Red Herring'. Now it wants powers to mandate jail sentences, which would defeat the logic of plea bargaining. Is this intended in case anyone with embarrassing secrets is offered a plea bargain to talk? In the United States, 90 per cent of those in prison were convicted based on plea bargains. Furthermore, not only will these bills give more power to the executive arm of Government, relative to the judiciary, but draconian measures such as 60-day detention without bail, has failed to curb crime in Trinidad and Tobago.

State and community

The present government is too compromised to fight crime. The prime minister has barely survived a parliamentary vote of no confidence. He has not survived a national feeling of no confidence. His Government has disrupted a process that was underway through Operation Kingfish. Jamaica now is sometimes referred to as a narco-state. The Opposition and civil society do not feel that human rights, community building, public health and social transformation approaches to crime fighting, recommended by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), have been addressed.

The National Committee on Crime and Violence (NCC) reported in 2002 that there were three solutions to the problem - rebuilding communities from below; improving the quality and integrity of political representatives and building bi-partisan means to support the above and to support accountable policing.

The NCC tried to move away from the top-down, party-focused, blame-giving approach to crime and violence to a bottom-up, society-centred, responsibility-taking approach to solutions. The Tivoli attack shows the risk of returning to a top-down, repressive approach which a UNODC and World Bank study had concluded in 2007 generally failed.

In his 2007 sectoral presentation, Phillips explained the preferred multi-dimensional community-focused approach. The newly tabled National Security Policy (NSP, 2006) was built around eight objectives: (1) dismantle organised criminal networks (2) strengthen criminal justice systems (3) protect Jamaica from terrorism (4) protect and control Jamaica's territory (5) strengthen the integrity of democratic institutions (6) increase Jamaica's contribution to regional and international security (7) provide the environment for a stable economy and delivery of social services, and (8) protect natural resources and reduce the risk of natural disasters.

The NCC had stressed community solutions like the need for better values and attitudes, stronger parenting skills, restorative justice programmes, peace and justice centres, leveraging positive school and community relations, strengthening consultative community committees, private sector adopt-a-community programmes, networking and twinning divided communities, mobilising non-governmental organisations, churches and the Peace Management Initiative, among others.

Phillips supplemented this with the idea of community safety officers (CSOs). He had intended to create CSOs, who would be community volunteers, acting as a bridge between the community and the police and a buffer between the community and crime.

Every community would make sure its core of CSOs was established and got the necessary training to do community audits, check for breaches of environmental, public order, and public transport laws, help to collect information on crimes committed in the community, and even patrol alongside the Jamaica Constabulary Force. The disruptive-obstructive, state-dominant paramilitary approach is no substitute for the community-based solution.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government at The University of the West Indies, Mona. Email: robert.buddan@uwimona.edu.jm.