Earl M. Bartley POLICE COMMISSIONER Francis Forbes is so fond of using the word "pro-active" it has become a cliché when used by him. But he is so reactive, I think he missed his vocation, and should have been a fire-fighter.
Two recent incidents illustrate the point. From the beginning of 2003 two gangs affiliated to the two political parties have been fighting over turf and extortion rights in Spanish Town and adjoining areas. The police have an Organised Crime Unit which has the stated purpose of targeting and dismantling gangs and arresting the leaders.
They even claimed in their wondrous way to have "intelligence" as to who the leaders of the "Clansman" and "One order" gangs are who have been terrorising the Southern St. Catherine area. Yet, on Saturday September 13, seven people were killed in Spanish Town and on the Mandela Highway.
Either the police targeting is not working or they were napping.
REACTIVE POLICING
One does not expect the police to prevent or arrest all crime. But given the frequency with which we have heard of gang members known to the police going on to commit further devastating crimes, what happened in Spanish Town does not appear like a temporary lapse but part of a pattern of ineffective policing. Given the long eight months the police had to identify the gang members and to bring them under surveillance, and possibly to pick them up one by one, if the police had been working, these gang-bangers would be hiding or on the defensive, not mobilising to plan attacks and counter-attacks.
As a consequence, six poor Jamaicans who were apparently only trying to eke out a living are dead, and we have the Peace Management Initiative again mediating with gun criminals to keep the peace.
The rape and killing of young girls by persons alleged to be taxi operators also illustrate the reactive tactics of the police. With our level of crime every major taxi-stand, especially in crime-prone areas, should have a constant police presence from early morning until late night. Police should be posted at these stands, constantly monitoring the movement of persons and checking out the bona fides of new drivers and other individuals hustling in the area. Today, even after the deaths of two or three young girls, I wonder how intense and constant police surveillance has become of these taxi stands.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
From my own experience I have seen how ineffective the police can be. Eighteen months ago two of my neighbours and myself were subjected to a spate of burglaries in the small rural hamlet where I live. I was burglarised three times in six months; one of my neighbours four times and another one eight times.
Each time we would dutifully report the matter to the police, who would 'sometimes' record what we told them in their elaborate longhand. 'Sometimes' too they would attend the scene of the crime to dust for fingerprints.
The negatives were then sent to Kingston to check for correspondence and that was generally the end of the matter, though we (the victims) would try to follow-up with tips to the police. What I found though is that if you were to follow-up beyond two weeks, the empathy the police had shown initially would dry up and they would almost seem to grumble 'why don't you stand your losses like a man'.
Eventually the punks who were terrorising us ended up killing an old couple in a two-week period in which two other old people had been murdered. Though unconnected, the incidents focused national attention on our community. True to their reactive selves, the Police High Command rushed reinforcements into our area.
CRIME STATISTICS
For the next few days, some detectives were conspicuously positioned in the centre of town staring intently at passers-by though the intelligence on the ground was that the culprits were lurking in the hills.
Clearly, a more effective tactic for the police to have pursued was to get some sniffer-dogs and try to track the culprits in the hills.
Instead, after a few more days, mostly spent cooling out at one or other "watering hole" in the area, the detectives returned to Kingston ostensibly to deal with some other urgency. Luckily for our community, the thugs had a falling out among themselves and killed the chief culprit who had been victimising us.
Beyond these anecdotal inferences and situations, the crime statistics further underscore the general ineffectiveness of the police in fighting crime. Since 1996 the total number of crimes "reported" to the police has declined from 52,000 to 29,000 in 2002 suggesting a 45 per cent decline in crime.
But, a cursory examination reveals that the bulk of the decline is accounted for by a 17,000 reduction in the reporting of minor crimes like assault and battery and malicious destruction of property. This is more like people downplaying minor infractions than a testament to
effective policing.
Major crimes like murders, shooting, rape and carnal abuse have increased or stayed approximately at the same level.
Robbery is the only major crime that has shown substantial reduction from 8,400 in 1996 to 2,021 last year. But one wonders whether this substantial reduction is not mainly reflective of a rise in the levels of the more convenient business of extortion where the robber returns week after week to the same victim instead of having to search for new prey.
"CLEAR-UP" RATE
The crime statistics also show a significant increase in the "clear-up" rate for all categories of crime. As in the United States, Jamaica subscribes to the FBI definition of "cleared-up" rate "when at least one person is arrested, and charged with the commission of an offence and turned over to the court for prosecution."
In 1996, the clear-up rate for murder was 35.5 per cent; shooting 40.8 per cent; rape and carnal abuse 36 per cent and robbery 31.4 per cent.
In 2002, the clear-up rate for robbery and shooting remained roughly the same but the rate for murder, rape and carnal abuse had increased to 47.4 per cent and 49 per cent respectively.
By comparison the clear-up rate for murder in the U.S. was 63.1 per cent in 2000. Aggravated assault (shooting and wounding, etc.) was 57 per cent; forcible rape 47 per cent and robbery 25.7 per cent. In Canada, clear-up rates average about 70 per cent for serious crimes. It is significant though, that Jamaica has a much higher clear-up rate for property crimes than the U.S. 53 per cent compared to 18.2 per cent.
Questions have also been raised however about the 'quality' of Jamaican arrests since our conviction rates average about 18 per cent compared to 40 per cent in many metropolitan countries.
Thus the crime statistics show that the Jamaica Constabulary Force has not been particularly effective in reducing violent crime and that our arrest rates, though improving, are still below levels that pertain in the developed countries.
Worse, our conviction rates suggest that only one in 10 perpetrators of violent crime in Jamaica runs the risk of being arrested and convicted of the offence.
REASONS FOR INEFFECTIVENESS
Why are Jamaican police seemingly so ineffective in preventing violent crime? A great part of the reason is that our police have never had the tools to effectively fight the criminal threat they face. Today's criminals rarely operate alone but are loosely organised in groups of two or three or in more hierarchical gangs.
Other features of violent crime in Jamaica are the high degree of mobility of the perpetrators, their ruthlessness and routine intimidation of witnesses and sometimes entire communities. Not to be forgotten, many of these thugs enjoy institutional protection and support from their communities and local politicians.
Given their characteristics and mode of operation, the police are unlikely to obtain sufficient information from witnesses or informants to constitute probative evidence in court. Law enforcement agencies that have had some success in fighting ruthless organised criminals have utilised electronic eavesdropping, undercover infiltration, and tough plea bargaining shakedowns of the small fry to get at the big fish.
These methods have only recently become available to Jamaican police and there is no indication that they currently are being extensively utilised.
A second reason is that the police deployment and their tactics are not appropriately designed to counter the crime threat they face. Jamaica's police force of 7,500 works out at approximately one officer to 350 citizens, somewhat above the 1 to 250 ratio that is the average in many developed countries. In addition to being short-staffed, the deployment of the force is not optimising.
Of the 7,500 personnel, estimates are that about 2,000 are deployed in support services and clerical work, another 2,500 are doing beat or general duty and about 1,000 work in the traffic division.
Another 1,000 are in specialised squads such as Narcotics, Rape Unit and Organised Crime Unit, and another 1,500 are detectives. It is reported that less than one hundred are undercover officers.
Thus, in the areas where the police needs to have a strong capacity, going by modern examples of successful gang-busting, the police have a very weak deployment.
To increase their success rate against the gangsters, the police have to increase their corps of undercover officers to about 500 so as to enhance their capacity to keep the gangsters under surveillance, and to infiltrate and gather high quality intelligence against these extortionists, gun-runners and drug dealers.
A third factor contributing to the police poor record in fighting crime is the absence of the requisite "esprit de corps".
Commissioner Forbes is one of the more outstanding administrative reformers within the police force in the past 50 years. But, as a field commander, his record is mediocre.
The effect of his reforms has been to make the average police a more polished and professional bureaucrat, which though desirable in many settings, even in the police force, is not always the most appropriate demeanour in all circumstances.
What is needed to fight crime is a tough streets-smart derring-do best typified by the young "Trinity"; Montego Bay's "Cowboy" and yes, SSP Adams. The problem with the latter is that in his long climb up the ladder from constable to his present position, he never seemed to have learnt that due process is not "semantics."
Weak policing contribute to crime by failing to keep criminals in check. The challenge facing Commissioner Forbes is to forge an effective undercover corps on his notoriously leaky and still corrupt police organisation. Then, maybe, instead of putting out the fire after it has started to blaze, he may well prevent it from being lit.
Earl Bartley is an economist and businessman. You can send your comments to adappa@cwjamaica.com
