EDITORIAL - Take care with anti-gang law

The rest of the story may be apocryphal. It is, however, fact that the fence and outer walls of the adult correctional centre along South Camp Road in Kingston used to be painted red.

The place used to be, and sometimes still is, called the Gun Court - where gun-crime cases were heard and persons convicted served their sentences.

As the story goes, Michael Manley, the late prime minister, whose administration established the Gun Court and made life sentences for gun crimes mandatory, was asked why the red. His reported response: "Because it is dread."

The fear that Manley sought to instill with the 'dread' Gun Court, with its draconian penalties, did not have much of an impact on gun crimes/murder in Jamaica, which it was aimed at curbing.

In 1975, when there was a 36 per cent jump in murders, there were 266 homicides. By 1980, there were 900. The figure nearly halved during the rest of 1980s, but homicides now hover at around 1,000 a year.

We hope that the Government has better luck with the so-called anti-gang law that National Security Minister Peter Bunting tabled in Parliament last week than the previous People's National Party (PNP) had with the Gun Court. Or, perhaps the more correct wish is that this law is more efficaciously enforced than the old, and existing, gun-crime legislation.

The foregoing notwithstanding, this newspaper supports the intent of the law, for which the police have long and loudly clamoured.

Gangs, many of which police say have transformed themselves into organisations engaged in economic crimes, are a major problem in Jamaica. A large chunk of the country's homicides is said to be gang related. They extort businesses and intimidate communities.

Like in many other jurisdictions, the law will make it an offence for individuals to lead, be members of, or recruit people into criminal organisations or to, in any way, facilitate their activities. It will be illegal to wear gang insignias or clothing or to promote their activities.

Penalties for these activities will range between five and 35 years.

We have a few observations.

DEBILITATING EFFECT

Our support for this law is in the context of the crisis of criminality and its debilitating effect on social stability and economic growth. Great care, therefore, has to be taken to ensure that activities to disrupt criminal organisations do not descend into the vulgar abuse of people's rights. In that regard, we support the limited lifespan of the law, but believe that a first review should be in two, rather than five, years.

We are concerned, for instance, that in the context of Jamaica's social and community arrangements, unemployed persons who hang out on street corners for want of a better occupation are by default deemed to be members of gangs or criminal enterprises. Such arbitrariness will undermine support for the law.

This, however, brings us back to our central point: the quality of enforcement. We hold that Jamaica's stratospheric homicide rate is not because of an absence of dread penalties or a dread court. Criminals behave with impunity because of a lack of effective enforcement.

No more than a third of murders are cleared up, in that the police identify a suspect. Far fewer cases reach the court. Tough penalties will come to naught if the police can't make cases stick.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.