Phillips
National Security Minister, Dr. Peter Phillips, met with Gleaner editors last week and addressed specific issues of crime, violence and the safety of the nation. Here are some of the points made by the Minister.
On the security of the state:
The right of the state to survive must be the priority right to be recognised. Which is not a denial of any individual human right. It is a clear recognition of fact, that if there is no authority to remedy infringements of rights, then there are no rights. So that, the very enjoyment of individual rights depend upon the survival of the public entity, the state and the preservation of order. It is a statement of fact, and not a statement about preference about one set of rights as against another. If rights can only be guaranteed by a superior entity, then that superior entity must be the state. That is just a historical and social fact. In historical times, it must be noted that many of the rights that are presently enjoyed came into existence as claims against the state. Therefore, the state had to exist before. And it is a principle of law that public rights supersede private rights. I would not like anyone to take those comments to mean that individual rights are to be given up or curtailed."
On the root cause of crime today:
"The tap root of much of the criminality, what sustains it now and perpetuates it, is this illegal trade in narcotics in my view.
Estimates are that between 70-100 tonnes of cocaine are transhipped through Jamaica each year, there is intelligence that the conduits used to traffic illegal narcotics into and outside of Jamaica are the same conduits that are used to bring in the weaponry into and out of Jamaica.
The finances that are generated by this trade provide resources to finance the guns, and are used at various times to bribe various officials in both the private and public sectors, whether they operate at the ports, other law enforcement agencies, wherever.
On organised criminal gangs:
"Gangs. The organised criminal gangs are sustained by this (cash) flow from drugs in a large part. I am not going to suggest that every corner crew is of the same order. But the heart of the organised criminal network which are transnational criminal networks rooted in Jamaica with manifestations in the UK, North America and elsewhere in the region, are themselves fostered by this trade.
"They are armed as they provide protection for the movement of the commodities, drugs through the country, they provide the protection when it is kept in storage, and the money that they earn, if they are entrepreneurial, find its way into other types of criminal enterprises, extortion rackets, sale of firearms, ammunition, carjacking, you name it...."
On the relationship between crime and poverty:
"I think we should bear in mind as we consider all of this that theories that suggest that crime is the result of poverty and income inequality are not sustained by empirical data.
"We have been poorer in our history and less crime-ridden, countries poorer in the world with lower per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP), do not have the levels of crimes that we have.
"If you look at income distribution, there are countries with more extreme income mal-distribution that do not have the levels of crime that we have, so that the analyses that make crime a sort of dependency on these two variables, are not sustained by empirical data.
"What this is a reflection of is a failure of policy choices over the years, a failure to make the allocations necessary over time, now the problem is upon us.
"But I am not going to suggest that there is no relationship to poverty, but it is not the fundamental cause by any means and we ought not to view it in those terms. Criminal activity is criminal activity and must be treated as such. There are many poor people who are not criminal and never will be."
On the strategy to deal with crime:
"If the tree has as its tap root, this drugs, then you have to attack that root. And I think I want to make the point that we are engaged in a battle that can be won and which we must win.
"The society cannot survive if it's lost, so it is a battle which must be won and one that we must win. But there is no quick fix.
"It is going to take the elaboration of a clear strategy and the society must be mobilised around that strategy, the will to implement the strategy, the preparation in terms of the necessary assets and resources to implement the strategies and having implemented it, the will to sustain it over some long period of time.
"In much as the US has declared war on terrorism, I think we must understand that our war on narco-terrorism is going to take some time, and we are going to have to sustain the national effort over the time that will allow us to return to some end state of reasonably harmonious, secure, crime free social relations.
"You know we have Caribbean countries which get frantic with murder rate of eight per 100,000. We have a murder rate going around 35 per 100,000 and we need to move it down. We need to set some clear targets about where we want to go, when we want it to and where we want it to go..."
On the security of Jamaica's borders:
"Among the critical elements which will be involved in securing our borders, which mean that we have to build up the asset base of the Jamaica Defence Force and Coast Guard, try and look at the re-equipping of the Marine police, so that you can have a strategy that will include offshore and inshore surveillance and interdiction capabilities of our coastline, so that we can track boats moving and bringing things for apprehension and interdictions.
"There is no wand to wave and that tomorrow we are going put in brand new radar system and things that will allow you to do that, and just wave it tomorrow and get three or four new Coast Guards cutters. It is going to take time, but we need to have a sense of what needs to be done..."
On port security:
"We need also to secure our ports as part of this effort. As I have said, it is clear that we are going to have to ensure that there is greater degree of access to the critical areas of our ports. And as I say plainly, private interests must yield to public interests.
"Firms operating on the ports, for example, want their personnel to have access to the port, they are going to have to accept that these people need to be appropriately vetted and background checks and the likes have to be applied to them.
"As we know, many of the operations bringing in weaponry and drugs on our ports have been perpetrated by the very people who work in these places and not just poor people. So, these are obvious things that must be done.
"Likewise we are going to work on the capacity to examine all goods passing through the ports, this will involve the use of appropriate and available technologies, so we are going to have to be more creative in using modern law enforcement technologies..."
On intelligence capabilities:
"This again is a sine qua non of modern law enforcement technique and that involves the use and greater use of technical capabilities in this regard.
"The interception legislation is presently before Parliament and we are going to have to pass it, that we can utilise it with appropriate controls in the fight against criminals. But we are going to have to utilise the intelligence driven aspects of the force. I have already mentioned the modernisation of the police force..."
On the way
forward:
"There has to be an equal focus on transforming attitudes and values and relationships inside of communities. You have to have what I might call a peace management process.
"You have to create more harmonious social relationships or you won't have enough police that can police the place if every citizen wants to kill another one. And unfortunately, in too many communities that seems to be the case, the simplest of dispute gets resolved by somebody killing another.
"Two murders in Arnett Gardens the other day, one killed the other, then there is a reprisal. It just goes on.
"You have a whole eruption of conflict in sections of the city, because of some tough talking, as a I gather it is called now, people call each other and 'cuss out' on cellular phones then it erupts into conflicts and you have the entire country being paralysed by it.
"But, you have to get into the head-space of people as well so that you can transform them, because we are creating an environment where life has become all too cheap and valueless in the minds of too many people. And we have to reverse that. So that there is that component to the resolution of the problem."
