Cobb
Leonardo Blair, Staff Reporter
WHILE POLICE investigators have fingered many deportees as the masterminds behind a growing network of criminal gangs and gang-related murders across the island, some of those sent home have complained of finding it hard to start a new life despite efforts to make a decent living.
Some say they were returned home to nothing, after spending most of their lives in North America, while others have found themselves wandering aimlessly among Kingston's dysfunctional street people or living off the generosity of night shelters run by charitable organisations.
A number of deportees domiciled at the Marie Atkins Night Shelter on Hanover Street in Kingston told The Sunday Gleaner that life in Jamaica has dealt them severe blows many times over, since their return home in the late 1990s.
ASHAMED AND AFRAID
Ashamed and still afraid to face his family since his deportation in 1996, George Brownson, 58, has stayed far from his family since he landed here after spending more than 30 years in the United States.
"Life is bad," says Brownson. "All of what is going on (with dangerous deportees) is bad. When people hear that you are a deportee them look at you in a funny way."
Brownson's crime in the United States was peddling ganja but since his deportation he has been stuck at the shelter. The money he had carried home finished after three weeks of paying rent in Kingston and he was put on the streets with nothing. Now, even though he was convicted of a crime, criminal acts being committed in Jamaica have been sending chills up his spine.
"When I found out that I was to be deported (from New York) I didn't feel bad because I felt Jamaica wasn't so bad, but when I came here and see it for myself... Too much killings and crime," he explained.
A skilled steel worker, Brownson said the competition for construction work in Kingston is so dangerous he had to opt for "hustling any little thing" and a bed at the night shelter.
For 50-year-old William Blackwho was deported to Jamaica from Canada in 1997, Jamaican life has been like an unending storm and he wished the authorities there hadn't whisked him home after he ran afoul of the law.
CREATED THE PROBLEM
"I think the system over there created the problem so I don't see why they have to ship us back here," says Black, who has been living at the Marie Atkins Night Shelter for the last four months.
Black left Jamaica for Canada at the age of 11, in 1964, and that was the first time he met his mother. By the time he turned 14, he said, she kicked him out because she couldn't deal with his attitude as a growing teenager and he was left on the tough streets of Toronto to fend for himself. In a few years after that he was in jail and in 1997 he found himself home in a country with which he had virtually no ties.
"I decided to go back to a little board house in Westmoreland square in the bush of a place called Broughton. It was hell. Not much was happening," he said. Black returned to Kingston and was lucky enough to find some work but a few years later, a bad relationship sent him over the edge and he is now back on the streets trying to find life again. "Right now I'm trying to get over this thing (broken spirit) and I will get over it," said Black.
In the meantime, deportees are said to be finding solace in several New Kingston hotspots. Though many of the stories are anecdotal, a group of nomadic deportees are said to have settled in the New Kingston area in the last two years and their numbers are swelling. Many are said to be involved in various activities such as male and female prostitution, crack vending, car washing and begging.
"They (deportees) are all over the place," one vendor in the New Kingston area told this reporter. "But them don't really want nobody know say them is deportee."
Staff at the New Kingston police post say they were unaware of the deportee situation. However, workers in the area who refused to be named for this story explained that several of them were homeless and were now frequenting entertainment hotspots in the area.
Inspector of the Poor for Kingston and St. Andrew, Carol Anthony, who has been assisting a number of deportees passing through the Marie Atkins Night Shelter, says "We have heard of the reports (of deportees) in that area but we have not been able to confirm them."
She pointed out, however, that the issue of homelessness in the area has been a cause for concern in recent years but that they have been unable to locate land in the area to establish a shelter to begin addressing the problem there.
When The Sunday Gleaner visited New Kingston last week one deportee, who initially admitted his status, refused to answer questions regarding his story.
"No, I don't want to give my story. I didn't tell you I was a deportee. And first of all, that is an invasion of privacy," said the gaunt man who now washes cars for a living.
Within the last seven years, more than 15,500 persons have been deported to Jamaica. Of that number, more than 12,000 were listed as being engaged in criminal activities but very few of that number were listed as dangerous. Some 3,500 of the seven-year total were illegal emigrants.
UNITED STATES WAS CONCERNED
In November last year, U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica, Sue Cobb, told a Gleaner Editors' Forum that the United States was concerned about the number of Jamaicans who were deported from that country and that consequently, it was 'looking for answers'.
According to her, research which was conducted in 2000 showed that the majority of Jamaicans who were deported from the U.S. entered that country at the age of 21 and remained for eight to 10 years before they were sent home.
Last month, the Caribbean Association for the Resettlement of Returning Residents (CARRR) submitted a proposal to the British High Commission, the Canadian and United States embassies respectively, to fund the establishment of a 3.5 million pound Behaviour Modification Centre to benefit deportees of Caribbean countries.
The organisation said the facility would, among other things, provide for the smooth re-integration of the deportees and would facilitate a public education programme to improve the negative perception towards them.
Named changed on request.
