Peter Espeut
Peter Espeut
I WAS once told by a member of Jamaica's elite that we sociologists are the cause of most of Jamaica's modern social problems. I knew exactly what he meant. The scientific analysis of our discipline exposes the ugly underbelly of Jamaican society, the festering wound the privileged do not wish exposed, for fear that ultimately it will lead to system changes that challenge their privileges. So I know that even a simple sociological analysis of crime in Jamaica will not be popular in some quarters moreso the prescription towards the cure but here it is anyway.
Crime (say the structural-functionalists) is a symptom of societal dysfunctionality. Where social systems are functioning properly and effectively, certain norms and values transmitted from generation to generation will work for social cohesion, for social order, and we will have social stability and a relatively small amount of crime. Such crime that exists will not be viewed positively by the majority of members of society.
SOCIAL SYSTEMS
We could be a textbook case for the structural-functionalists. Our social systems are not functioning properly. Take education: less than half the graduates of Jamaican primary schools learn to read properly; less than half of high school graduates can pass English at CXC, and even less can pass mathematics. As poor as schools are in teaching skills, they are ever poorer in transmitting the norms and
values necessary to produce social cohesion; in fact, schools are one of the major loci for violence in the society, such that police officers now have to be stationed in schools.
There is a direct connection between our dysfunctional education system and crime. Every year, thousands of young people enter the labour market without the skills or values to get the sort of jobs that will allow them the lifestyle they see as 'normal' on cable television. There are few legal ways that a semi-literate graduate of an all-age school can come to own a substantial house or a car, or be able to take a holiday in Europe or Africa. The few legal opportunities for advancement are migration (out of the inequality), becoming a dancehall star, and sports (which partially explains our overperformance in this area).
The gap between what people are offered as education and the lifestyle people aspire to (or are encouraged to aspire to) causes large numbers of individuals to feel alienated from the society which has improperly formed them, which has disadvantaged them, and they seek to attain the lifestyle put before them by any means necessary.
Again using education, when persons in the lower sections of society are struck by the carefully built-in social inequalities, this leads to radical rejection of the society and its foundations. When they see the low quality education they are being offered such that they are fit only to work in the sugar cane, banana or coffee fields, or as domestic servants, while other people's children go to elite government high schools geared to produce educational, social and economic advancement, many feel that the system is stacked against them, and they rebel. Some go to school and play by the rules, and then when they leave and cannot get the sort of job they were led to expect, they strike out.
There is a direct connection between our unequal education system and crime. When they see their peers treated a certain way by the police, and other people treated in a more deferential way by the same police; when they see certain people commit crime and get away with it because they are able to hire smart lawyers, and then they see poor (sometimes innocent) people convicted and jailed, they rebel.
DIRECT CONNECTION
There is a direct connection between our unfair justice system and crime. In this way of thinking, the solution to crime has to do with creating a more equal society, such that more persons see themselves as full members of society with a stake in its success. Different theory, same policy prescription. Seeing the profound inequalities in Jamaican society has led sociologists of all stripes to wonder why Jamaica has not yet disintegrated into anarchy or revolution. Or maybe it has, or is beginning to!
Previously Jamaicans have fallen into non-violent means of challenging our sinful social structure. Rastafarianism is a profound critique of Babylon, leading to social dropouts. Pentecostalism ("This world is not my home, I am only passing through") with its promise of a better world in the next life has allowed many people to cope. Are these escapes losing their power? There can be no "return to normality". Those that hope for an end to crime and a return to the "peace" of the past want our unequal oppressive Jamaican society to persist. We need a more lofty vision, lest we perish.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.