Delroy Chuck THE EVENTS, last week, in Canterbury, St. James, in which gunmen allegedly traded shots with the police for the better part of nine hours, highlight the tough and unenviable task of the Police Force to bring crime under control. But, Canter-bury is not unique. Even now, police patrol cars remain around the clock in the troublesome area of Mountain View, and Spanish Town is still under constant surveillance after the recent outbreak of gang violence. In fact, every urban ghetto is being closely watched for the first sign of trouble, as gang warfare and an escalation of criminal activity can occur without much warning.
I wonder if the police, and the society, really comprehend the enormous challenges to bring crime under control. Sadly, it is not going to get better, it is likely to get worse. Jamaica is decaying, and it can be seen from the proliferation of urban or inner-city ghettos, which have increased and expanded around every urban area. Kingston has a multiplicity of ghettos, some are mere pockets built up along the gully banks or in communities in which the infrastructure and social organisation have been allowed to disintegrate. Montego Bay, Spanish Town, May Pen, Ocho Rios and many other urban centres are attracting and allowing contiguous inner city communities, many of which have started to experience increasing criminality and, unless the chaotic and unregulated development cease, crime and violence can only soar and, ultimately, overwhelm us.
LAWLESS AND DISORDERLY
The urban ghettos are breeding grounds for frustration, bitterness and, naturally, criminality. That is where the majority of crimes occur in Jamaica. Stay away from these areas, and one can feel relatively safe and secure. The inner city communities are lawless and disorderly. The residents feel abandoned, neglected, and bitter with a society that has failed to offer them the basic amenities, facilities and opportunities to live a decent quality of life. Canterbury is symptomatic of many inner city communities unplanned, disorderly and hopeless. Electricity and water are, generally, illegally connected. The communities are served by narrow, dirt tracks, on which two vehicles cannot pass.
Interestingly, across the world, criminal gangs are common features of urban ghettos. Naturally, in Jamaica, those who are unaware of this global phenomenon blame politics for the criminal gangs, which is all nonsense. Politics and the politicians did not create the criminal gangs, even though many politicians use them for their electoral and nefarious purposes and that is why the link is usually made. Criminal gangs emerge from the subculture, disorganisation and struggles of the urban ghetto they are rarely features of rural or middle class communities.
LOWER CLASS MALES
Gangs usually consist of poorly educated, unattached, young lower class males. In the transient residency of the ghetto, socially disorganised and economically deprived young males find a common front and a joint enterprise in the activities of the gang. These gangs are generally formed around a common purpose the distribution and trading in drugs, extortion, car stealing, robberies, or sometimes, simply, to protect turf and control communities. Their modus operandi revolves around spreading fear the community members must fear them and other gangs must fear their criminal skills, brutal violence and inordinate power. Guns and other deadly weapons are their tools of trade. Without their weapons, they are powerless. With their guns, they feel like kings, powerful and untouchable.
In truth, gangs provide the power, money, status, and respect, the inner-city youth so desperately seek. The don, or the leader of the gang, is revered and respected by the community, as he helps the sick, weak and vulnerable and provides the means by which many residents actually survive. The women and the elderly depend on them for support. The young girls, from an early age, become the sexual comfort for the gang members, and very few can escape from the clutches and demands of the rampaging gangs. Is it any wonder that many of these communities are criminalistic, i.e. support criminality and criminals, as they benefit from the criminal activities. Moreover, it is these gangs that provide protection and security to these communities.
The main issue is how to deal with gangs. To be sure, we want to dismantle and eliminate them. Yet, executing or imprisoning their leaders or their members will not solve the problem, as others simply emerge to fill the void. I have contended before, and still do, that unless we get rid of the inner city blight, the economic deprivation, the social disintegration and everything that causes whole communities to decay and become socially disorganised then we will never overcome the problems of rampaging criminal gangs. The immediate challenge is how to curb the expanding urban ghettos creeping around every urban centre and from which crime and the criminal gangs will emerge it is a challenge that finds its solution in the economic growth and development of the country.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Opposition Member of Parliament. He can be contacted by e-mail at delchuck@hotmail.com.
