The weakness of the anti-gang law

Yvonne McCalla Sobers, Guest Columnist

Politicians will shortly pat each other on the back for finally passing the anti-gang law. They will yet again convince themselves that harsh laws scare criminals, even though crime data suggest otherwise.

With the anti-gang law in place, policing methods are likely to alienate more youth and more communities. The police will now be able to arrest and charge inner-city youth without needing evidence that they committed any crime. The flurry of arrests will no doubt bring about a lull in crime that will seem to prove that the new law is having the desired effect.

As has happened many times before, criminal masterminds go underground to review and refine tactics that will lead to the next upsurge in crime. For 40 years, Jamaica has gone this route, and the results should now be easy to predict.

Increased arrests under this anti-gang law will place burdened security and justice systems under even greater pressure. Already overcrowded police lock-ups will become more hellish for longer periods. Poor youth on the corner will be at greatest risk of conviction while crime bosses will have the means to expose the weaknesses of the anti-gang law.

Relying on a law cut and pasted from overseas models, police may overlook research data specific to Jamaican gangs.

Because of vagueness in defining 'gang' and 'gang member', anti-gang laws have been difficult to enforce. Confusion arises when police and the public are unclear what conduct is prohibited, and what friends, clothing, tattoos, graffiti, or songs will lead to arrest.

BACKLOG PREDICTED

Prosecutors with excessive workloads risk having less time and fewer resources to handle increased arrests, some of which may be frivolous. Accused persons are likely to wait many years for trial dates in courts that currently have a backlog of hundreds of thousands of cases.

Appeal courts are likely to rule the anti-gang law unconstitutional because it breaches freedom of association. Horrific conditions in Jamaican prisons are likely to provide gangs with a pool of recruits, particularly among those whose offence rests on the discretion of the police and the court.

Jamaica does not have to imagine any of the consequences of passing anti-gang laws. Anti-gang laws have been struck down in the United States, Australia, and Canada. In the US, where all 50 states have some form of anti-gang legislation but no agreed definition of 'gang', gangs have strengthened while crime has gone down.

El Salvador's 2010 anti-gang law had early apparent effect on gang-related crime. However, most youth arrested under this law were subsequently released because there was no evidence they had committed any crime. Some of those who were wrongly arrested for gang membership joined gangs while in prison. To avoid detection under this law, Salvadorean gangs changed their operations.

CANNOT SOLVE CRIME

Further, Jamaica could do well to learn from Trinidad and Tobago's experience of its 2011 anti-gang law.In an article published in October 2013, a research associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs wrote:

"The Anti-Gang Act ultimately hurts much more than it helps. It facilitates mass arrests and the escalation of violence, but not the conviction of large numbers of felons."

Harsh laws were expected to solve crime in 1974 when Jamaica's murder rate was about 200 per year. However, last year, 1,200 Jamaicans were murdered in addition to more than 200 killed in police fatal shootings.

A new approach requires a plan for preventing and solving crime. Minister of National Security Peter Bunting deserves credit for his recently launched Unite for Change movement. However, Minister Bunting risks undermining police-citizen unity with a law likely to worsen police-citizen relationships.

Building public confidence in national security will require targeting gang leaders with tactics meant to outsmart rather than outshoot; integrating youth who are unattached and at risk; enforcing existing laws; engaging the public as respected partners in solving crime; ending links between politics and crime; ending state neglect of zones abandoned to control of criminals; increasing the investigative capacity of the police; bringing cases to court in under 18 months; and enabling prisons to correct, rather than embed, antisocial behaviour.

Passing this anti-gang law will, at best, have cosmetic short-term effect. However, long-term growth and development is likely to result only if crime-solving strategies are preventive and rehabilitative.

Yvonne McCalla Sobers is convenor of Families Against State Terrorism. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and sobersy@gmail.com.