EDITORIAL - Why criminals behave with impunity

Anyone seeking to understand the impunity with which criminals seem to behave in Jamaica need only review last week's report in this newspaper on the outcomes of gun cases in the island's gun courts.

In the capital in the 2010-2011 fiscal year, according to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), nearly 70 per cent of the cases either collapsed before they reached the court or were thrown out.

The statistics for the other parishes are not as complete. We, however, have no reason to believe that they were any better than those in the Corporate Area.

Significantly, of the 435 gun-related cases that were before the capital's court, 184, or 42 per cent, ended in acquittals (154) or dismissals for want of prosecution (30).

The DPP managed 116 convictions - a mere 27 per cent. Or, looked at another way, acquittals/want of prosecution were nearly a third more than convictions.

We might otherwise have been tempted to conclude that the police are in the habit of whimsically charging people for gun crimes. Except that in most of these cases, the police would likely have had a signal from the DPP to go forward with the prosecution. In other words, prosecutors, we think, had winnable cases.

That this does not happen, the head prosecutor, Paula Llewellyn suggests, is not the fault of her office. It is primarily, she seems to say, the failure of the people who complained in the first place, and of the police.

She said: "It is the classic manifestation of the scenarios that occur if persons make complaints to the police and they either do come forward to give their evidence, lose interest, or allow themselves to succumb to intimidation ... ."

There are times, too, when the police do not properly investigate cases.

What neither her formal report, nor subsequent remarks, addressed in any depth were the reasons why complainants, victims and witnesses abandon cases and/or allow themselves to be intimidated. Nor do we know how long the cases were in the queue before they came up for hearing.

BACKLOG blues

We might start with the tortuous pace at which cases work their way through the courts. There is a backlog of nearly half a million cases in the entire system.

It is difficult, having been to court on numerous occasions, without any movement on their matter, for victims, the family of victims and witnesses to maintain interest. Further, the longer a case drags out, the more vulnerable a witness is likely to feel and the greater the likelihood of him or her succumbing to intimidation.

Then there is the fact that the figures presented by the DPP paint a picture that is substantially brighter than reality. Recall that the police 'clear up' only about a third of the murder/gun crimes in Jamaica. That is, they identify a suspect and, perhaps, make an arrest.

But far fewer than this number make it to court. And of those that make it there, we can expect 70 per cent of the accused to walk free.

With the statistics packed in their favour, what have criminals to fear?

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