It's crime, stupid

Din Duggan, Contributor

Last week I readied my new suit, polished my old shoes and held my BlackBerry near, eagerly anticipating a phone call. Former US President Bill Clinton was speaking in St Andrew and, as a Gleaner contributor, I thought a complimentary ticket would certainly be in order. I was obviously deluded. Apparently, penning columns nominating deejays Vybz Kartel and Bounty Killer for prime minister of Jamaica doesn't engender much respect among the powers that be.

The former president reportedly discussed the rash of maladies facing Jamaica. Although we were surely well aware of the ailments and his prescriptions, they perhaps seemed more poignant coming from the former leader of the free world, a man who presided over the largest economic expansion in US history, the creation of 22 million new jobs, a US$237 -billion budget surplus, and eight years of declining crime, all while managing to become the first 'black' president of the US, before the first black president of the US.

Imagine, it all began with a simple phrase: "It's the economy, stupid". No, Bill Clinton wasn't talking to George W. Bush. He was addressing GW's daddy, George H.W. Bush, who, in March 1991, after defeating Saddam Hussein's army, enjoyed a 90 per cent job-approval rating and appeared an indomitable incumbent in the approaching election. The Clinton campaign decided to tap into growing concern about the state of the economy. Outspoken campaign manager James Carville devised the slogan, "It's the economy, stupid" to focus staffers on this message. The phrase went viral, becoming a nationwide rallying cry that shifted attention from Bush's successful foreign policy to his glaring neglect of a moribund economy. By August 1992, Bush's 90 per cent approval rating swung to 64 per cent disapproval. The rest, as they say, is history.

A common goal

Bill Clinton enjoined Jamaicans to embrace one common goal - a single system to overhaul in the face of a multiplicity of problems. Wondering what that should be? Let me help. It's crime, stupid! Or, as we might say in Jamaica: "It's crime, eediat"! We can no longer 'willy bounce' around the crime issue. This scourge has infiltrated every segment of society and is the root cause of our sluggish economy. NCB Chairman Michael Lee Chin suggests that the economy has lost $20 billion in GDP primarily as a result of crime.

The United Nations estimates that reducing our murder rate from 50 per 100,000 persons to 8 per 100,000 would yield annual GDP increases of 5.4 per cent. We rob ourselves of value-added aspects of tourism when visitors fail to venture outside the resorts. The cost of dispensing care to victims of violent crime has overwhelmed the public-health sector. Public corruption is particularly heinous as it unjustly diverts scarce capital from the national purse while undermining confidence in leadership. The current approach has failed. Term limits, campaign-finance reform, and separation of the executive and legislative functions of government, are needed to combat public corruption. We have to train more detectives and enhance our forensic capabilities.

The criminal justice system must be overhauled to promote equity and efficiency. More subtle factors, including the link between criminal behaviour and rampant, undiagnosed, and untreated mental health conditions, need to be adequately addressed.

Anti-Crime Council

Criminality is bred by a panoply of factors. It affects a range of sectors spanning virtually all government portfolios.

As such, we need a collaborative, multidisciplinary crime-reduction policy that is a primal focus of every government ministry. I propose a cabinet-level anti-crime council led by a crime "czar" whose mandate it would be to drastically reduce crime by developing this policy and coordinating and implementing it across the various ministries.

The council would include a policy-research component, an enforcement mechanism and perhaps house an intelligence and investigatory agency with authority to investigate and prosecute public corruption, police misconduct and other serious crimes that threaten to destabilise society. We can no longer combat crime in a piecemeal manner. The patchwork approach may be tolerable for road repair, but it cannot be applied to a crime fight that is vital to our very existence. Had Bill Clinton fallen victim to the real threat facing Jamaicans, outside the safety of the Jamaica Pegasus hotel and his Secret Service detail, he would have surely put down his cigar, picked up his phone and screamed to the powers that be: "It's crime, eediats!"

Din Duggan is an attorney and entrepreneur who now works as a consultant with a global legal-search firm. Contact him at facebook.com/dinduggan, twitter.com/YoungDuggan, or dinduggan@gmail.com. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.