EDITORIAL - A reset on crime

Some years ago when the Briton, Les Green, was head of criminal investigations in Jamaica's constabulary, he canvassed for a sharp increase in the proportion of detectives in the force - perhaps up to 20 per cent of its membership.

Had the idea been implemented - and there is no evidence that it was - there would now be around 2,400 detectives - computed on the basis of the Jamaica Constabulary Force and its auxiliaries - or one for every 1.5 murders likely to be committed in Jamaica this year. The police, in the circumstance, would have more staff to dedicate to the investigation of serious crimes, particularly murder, for which the annual clear-up rate is around 40 per cent.

Taken from another angle, that clear-up rate means that more than 700 murders committed in Jamaica last year remained unsolved. And last year's murders, despite the uptick from 2012, represented a one-third decline from what it was four years earlier.

unsolved crimes

But the clear-up rate for crime, generally, and murder, in particular, has remained relatively static for several years. In other words, there is a huge backlog of unsolved crime in Jamaica, of which murder is the most pressing.

This inability by the police to solve crime, and a court system that is lethargic in dispensing justice when the police do muster a case, exacerbate the sense of impunity among Jamaica's criminals. It feeds crime. At the same time, the high crime fuels fear, adds cost to economic activity, and weakens growth.

Given the Government's fiscal problem, there is unlikely to be any rapid recruitment and training of large numbers of police officers to bring Jamaica's police-to-citizen ratio - we are 89 per cent of Barbados and just over half of the Bahamas - in line with those of other English-speaking Caribbean countries.

Assuming, say, an average 1,500 murders annually over the past five years and an annual clear-up rate of 40 per cent, the police would have a backlog of 4,500, which will be added to by the new year's homicides. In that event, and not counting the thousands of unsolved murders going back decades, the average Jamaican detective may have an active file of, say, five murders. This does not include the other major crimes such as shootings and rapes. Detectives are overwhelmed.

unconventional solutions

In this situation, Jamaica's policymakers, in addition to aggressively reforming an inefficient and significantly corrupt constabulary, may have to contemplate unconventional solutions, but not including extrajudicial killings. Among the things worth considering is a reset - drawing a red line on past crimes and starting afresh.

In this situation, the police would prioritise and allocate most resources to murders committed in the declared starting period, say 2014, and announce a new, substantially improved benchmark for solving murders. This will not, of itself, solve the problem of the high crime/murder rate. But if the police meet, or come close to, their goals, and receive the support of the court system in quickly resolving these cases, it could have a significant demonstration effect.

There is, of course, a price to pay for any such action. Perpetrators of earlier crimes might escape justice. But they mostly do, anyway. More important is the likely effect on victims, and the families of victims, who not only do not now get justice, but will be aware that their quest for relief is officially on the back burner. The circumstance and context of this proposal would, therefore, demand an honest conversation, which we are ready to facilitate.

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.