Robert Hart, Parliamentary Reporter
PHILLIPS(left) and SMITH(right)
NATIONAL SECURITY Minister, Dr. Peter Phillips, said on Wednesday night that the Govern-ment will be undertaking a study of the effect of the influx of deportees on the rampant criminality affecting the nation.
Dr. Phillips was responding to queries during the marathon second-day sitting of Parliament's Standing Finance Committee as it examined the Estimates of Expen-diture for the 2005/ 2006 Budget.
Derrick Smith, Opposition spokesman on national security, had posed direct questions to the minister about undertaking a study similar to a proposal he made during the sectoral debate last year.
OVERSEAS COLLABORATION
"I'm curious to know if the ministry is now doing, or plans to do, a research in relation to the impact of deportees on the crime and violence in Jamaica," Mr. Smith said.
Dr. Phillips responded: "Yes ... in fact, there is an interest among our partners in the region to have a collaboration in undertaking the study and there is also an interest in what I might call the deporting countries to have collaboration in the study ... and it is proposed to do it in the course of this financial year."
During last year's Sectoral Debate, Mr. Smith called on the Government to update Parlia-ment on the relationship between deportees and crime.
He had argued during his contribution to the debate that it was unacceptable that 10 years after legislation establishing a mechanism for monitoring deportees was brought to Parliament, the Ministry of National Security was still without hard data to show the correlation between the rise in crime and the number of deportees involved.
The amendment to the Criminal Justice Administra-tion Act, commonly referred to as The Deportee Bill, was passed in the House of Representatives in October 1993. Under the act, deportees are required to report to the nearest police station in their community. The legislation also provides for the imposition of certain restrictions on deportees, the establishment of a central register and the setting up of a tribunal to review their cases.
On Wednesday, Dr. Phillips noted, however, that the Government has yet to settle on the team to conduct the study.
