DR. BERNARD Headley, professor of criminology at the University of the West Indies (UWI), has challenged the long-held and intensely popular view that deportees are largely responsible for the violent criminality that has engulfed Jamaica.

Dr. Headley, who yesterday presented the findings of a UWI study of Jamaicans sent back from the United States, explained that of about 5,000 criminals deported between 1997 and 2003, very few were found guilty of murder. All convicted deportees, he added, would have been subject to the risk assessment policies of the United States government before being released into society.

CONTINUING RISKS

"We should not operate assuming that people who have committed homicides are necessarily continuing risks," Dr. Headley said, during a seminar hosted by the U.S. Embassy at the Knutsford Court Hotel in St. Andrew.

"The numbers of convicted murderers who come here, they have been assessed as low to medium risk."

Dr. Headley, in bolstering his argument, drew on a study related to deportees sent back to Trinidad and Tobago. That study indicated that less than one per cent of crime in the twin-island republic was related to convicted deportees, and he suggested, similar percentages could hold true for Jamaica.

Dr. Headley conceded, however, that there remains a need for a more intensive local study on the impact of deportees once returned to Jamaica. Such a study is currently being carried out by the Ministry of National Security.

STUDY COMMISSIONED

The UWI study on deportees sent back to the island was commissioned by and grew out of a desire on the part of the United States Embassy to "inform, broaden and deepen" debate surrounding what has become a contentious issue in the Caribbean. That issue is the view that the U.S. has been and continues to dump hardened, dangerous criminals on the region.

The data analysed came to Dr. Headley's research team indirectly through the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. State Department of Homeland Security.

According to the information received, the number of persons sent back to the island from the US between 1997 and 2003 was 12,036. But from a total of 8,228 deportees the researchers were able to trail consistently, 5,174 had been convicted of a serious crime in the U.S.

Of that number, only 106 had been convicted for murder, while the majority were convicted on drug charges.