Bernard Headley POLICE Commissioner Francis Forbes is in a quandary.
This past week he admitted, according to The Gleaner, that "aspects" of the Government's crime initiative had "failed", and that "it was necessary to return to the drawing board to come up with a new plan."
I suspect, though, that many Jamaicans who are equally well meaning and well thinking as I believe Mr. Forbes is, may want to urge prudence in soliciting another new and improved crime plan.
Before the Government's "Crime Plan I" (my term), library shelves were bending under the weight of careful, well-reasoned plans, proposals and recommendations for how best to remedy the Jamaican crime situation.
AN EXAMPLE
Take one example. Back in September 2000, the Faculty of Social Sciences, at the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), spearheaded an initiative to assemble its various scholars from across faculties to propose, after a months-long consultative process, long-term strategies that could lead to reductions in violent crimes and the level of aggression in the society.
Under the wise and capable leadership of the Dean, Professor Barry Chevannes, the initiative led to a final document, "Crime, Peace and Justice in Jamaica: A Transformative Approach", of which I was principal author with Dr. Anthony Harriott and Professors Wilma Bailey and Freddie Hickling as co-authors.
The document was hand-delivered to Prime Minister P. J. Patterson and other Government leaders, and to Leader of Opposition, Edward Seaga, in early 2001 well before the country was given the full measure of the now discredited Crime Management Unit (CMU), and before the rise and fall of one Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams.
It was also well before the West Kingston violence of July 2001 and the consequent Report of the National Committee on Crime and Violence.
It preceded by days (perhaps) Minister of National Security Peter Phillips' announcement of "Crime Plan I", but was well ahead of the convoluted discourse on narco-terrorism and Professor Don Robotham's strange discursive on waging "intelligent war" against crime.
Perhaps Commissioner Forbes never got a chance to glance at our document, even though we'd hasten to admit that most of what we suggested are a bit beyond his job description.
But I couldn't help thinking, as I felt his pain, that the last thing he needs is another crime plan.
Given the sizeable influence he commands, perhaps out of Mr. Forbes' haunting frustration, he could lead the charge for empowering ideas, transformative ideas, which the political establishment essentially pooh-poohed; though none of us will now engage in childish "told-you-so" brickbats.
The transformative approach we offered is one that links crime and social structures, and envisions transformational change in these structures be they economic, political, familial, environmental, educational, or cultural as fundamental to arriving at Commissioner Forbes' grand objective: i.e. reduced rates of especially violent crime.
We operationalised the approach into 12 themes (or proposals), which we had hoped would have guided a certain national course of action-different from the CMU's and that set forth in crime plans I & II for dealing with the nation's troubling crime problem. (We do however see movements like Partners for Peace and the Government-initiated Peace Management Initiative as promising developments in this transformative direction).
INITIATIVES
I'll quote below exactly the way we worded these themes, along with brief edited excerpts the reasoning, informed by academic research, behind each theme. (The full text of the document will shortly be available on the Jamaicans For Justice Web site.)
1. Intensify efforts toward social and economic justice while finding ways to grow the economy.
Our leading assertion is that in order to effectively reduce over the long haul violent predatory crime, the political directorate as well as sectors within civil society (e.g. employers) will have to substantively demonstrate, perhaps as never before, dedicated commitment to reducing the nation's glaring economic inequalities.
Specifically we call attention to the following:
The steady rise in the nation's violent crime rate is highly correlated, over time, with indicators of economic disparity, with high unemployment rates among well-defined populations being only one variable in a lengthy causal chain.
High levels of serious crime is also strongly associated with the high proportion of the population that does not (or is unable to) participate meaningfully in the society, and which disproportionately shares only a tiny fraction of the nation's wealth.
It is this structural condition of mass social and economic disfranchisement that is the major source of much serious crime from formation of warring urban gangs, to acts of wanton violence
Miserable social and economic conditions make for miserable family life and, consequently, for neglectful parenting, which is the closest link to crime and delinquency in a sequence of other factors.
Government and solidarity organisations must, therefore, seek to develop new means and methods for not only promoting traditional family values, but also for building and supporting strong families.
We cite the above while acknowledging that a portion of the crimes committed in Jamaica demonstrate no visible connection to poverty, deprived economic circumstance or weak family
structure.
2. Transform garrison political culture and practice.
We make an unequivocal call for change from the present political practice of the two major political parties doing little to discourage (perhaps even encouraging) warring inner-city factions murdering each other over spoils and scarce benefits. All political parties should instead encourage the building of alliances and coalitions among people who are commonly oppressed.
3. Legal justice must be made real in practice and in
appearance.
Time and again, in surveys, studies and media reports, the urban poor have said that it is entirely at them that police have trained their guns; and that they are the objects of tougher enforcement measures whenever there's heightened concern over crime. The high numbers of extra-judicial killings, and reliable stories of police abuse and use of excessive force in ghetto areas, support this contention.
If law enforcement is to receive the full, sustained support of all segments of the society, justice in the courts and on the streets will not only have to be real; it will also have to appear real.
This will require extensive reform in key sectors of law enforcement and the judiciary, where what are needed over the long term are:
Major redefinition in the relationship between police and citizen, so that all citizens will receive greater respect from the police.
Greater accountability of police agencies to the communities they serve, which will require among other things concentrated movement toward relevant models of community policing.
4. Develop [more] creative ways to transform the pent-up energies of our people from destructive behaviours into productive activities.
Our people particularly our young people have few means through which to express, for example, their much-vilified aggressiveness, a normative trait that can lead to excellence in sports but also to violence on the road, in public places and in the home. Thoughtful attention ought therefore be given to establishing ongoing programmes of "cultural therapy", practised in safe, non-threatening places.
5. Transform education and role of the educational system.
A major shortcoming of the educational system that we see having a direct bearing on the extent of serious crime is that concepts intrinsic to nation-building, and vociferously propagated at the national civic level such as tolerance for diversity, cultivation of civic ethic and of communitarian values are not apparent in the behaviours of most school leavers.
Needed over the long haul is serious revision of curricula, at all levels, to ensure that students are as equipped at responsible communitarian practice as they are with necessary academic skills.
Over and beyond this, the broad masses of the Jamaican people are in need of educated ways to deal effectively with deep-rooted problems of self-hate, lack of self-worth, depression and identity.
Problems associated with low self-esteem and under valuing of self often have pushed youngsters into acts of brutality against others, and increasingly into suicide.
SUPPORT LOCALISED EFFORTS
6. Local media, especially television, must change the way they report and present crime.
Cheap sensationalism characterises much of what passes for TV news reporting on crime. Exploitative reportage of crime stories further dehumanises victims, and victims' families. It also has the tendency to inflame without informing. Moreover, it often provokes unwarranted fear. We call upon all local media to engage in more responsible journalism on the matter of crime.
7. Support localised efforts at peacekeeping and peacemaking.
Government does not have all the answers to crime, neither should it have the final say-so on what to do about crime. Grassroots initiatives directed at fostering long-term peace between rival gangs and at restoring (through, for instance, methods of restorative justice) bonds that have been sundered by crime should be endorsed, encouraged and
facilitated.
8. Increase efforts at rehabilitation within prisons.
While incarceration may demonstrate individual failure, prison can be an environment in which change in patterns of conduct do occur. For this reason, any system of penal justice must provide those necessities that enable inmates to live in dignity: food, clothing, shelter, personal safety, timely medical care, education and appropriate work.
9. Generate targeted mass employment projects.
The association between unemployment and crime needs no elaboration here. However, we do want to call attention to findings showing that it is the most blighted areas in the Kingston Metropolitan Area, and also in Spanish Town and Montego Bay, that have the highest rates of homicide. These areas are responsible for a disproportionate share (more than 70 per cent) of the nation's violent crimes.
TRAGETED PROGRAMMES
We see, therefore, a need for Government and the private sector to immediately develop, inside targeted areas:
Programmes for comprehensive education, training and skills-building
Means for mass employment, primarily work projects that are not tied to political patronage.
10. Invest in employment opportunities that will in the long term generate sustainable jobs.
While a significant percentage of the nation's youths are in need of immediate employment to, among other things, deter them from a life of crime, mere employment will not be enough. They will need good, viable jobs if they are to become stakeholders in the society.
11. Do more to enable small-scale entrepreneurship.
Government and private financial institutions should do a lot more than they are currently doing to make it easier for enterprising youths to access capital in order for them to start, in this nation of entrepreneurs, their own mini ventures and enterprises.
12. Establish on the Mona Campus of the UWI a peace institute.
The peace institute would serve first and foremost to operationally define, monitor and help implement elements of the type of transformative approach articulated here. The ultimate significance of the peace institute, though, is that it will enable the university another way to connect institutionally with the society more directly
so with its surrounding neighbourhoods.
We see the university in the 21st century being obligated to fulfil new and more challenging roles than heretofore. It is being challenged to develop new collaborative, community-based integrated-service systems, and to define its role as a partner in community building.
Bernard Headley is professor of criminology in the Department of Sociology, Psychology & Social Work, UWI, Mona.
