Aubyn Hill
SOME TIME ago there was an incident at the Cave Hill campus in Barbados which resulted in a number of students getting arrested. Among the arrested students was the wife of Prime Minister Kenny Anthony of St. Lucia. An officer of the Jamaican security forces recalled the incident and his admiration for the way the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mr. Owen Arthur, handled the situation. The officer said the Barbadian Prime Minister made a statement along the following lines:
Parliament debates and passes the laws of the country and the citizens are expected to comply. The police are expected to enforce the law.
When the police enforces the law the process must take its full course - irrespective of who is involved.
The security officer recounted that the PM's statement was the end of the incident and that the law took its full course. He openly wished that the Jamaican police would have that kind of unequivocal backing from our leaders and the wider society when it comes to enforcing the law. The security officer really liked the fact that Prime Minister Arthur's statement was not qualified in any way nor laced with conditionality.
GIVE US THE LAWS AND RESOURCES AND WE WILL FINISH THE JOB
A prevailing lament among many in the security forces is that they do not have the laws on the books that would help them to deal with the current crime situation in the country. Sure, many would say that there are many laws that they could enforce and there would be much truth to that statement. However, laws on extortion, money laundering, and the confiscation of assets that are owned without any clear legal source as to how the ownership was arrived at need to be strengthened and tightened. Judges also need laws that are updated in order to hand out sentences that fit today's abhorrent crimes.
Members of the security forces cite the issue of squatting in Jamaica and how the police force is treated when they seek to carry out the existing laws concerning the removal of squatters. Invariably, they say they are abused and vilified and the issue of the squatters' human rights is raised but no one seems to talk about the human and commercial rights of the owners of the property on which the squatters seek to squat. The police get little or no support form the society at large or from leaders in the business community, the church, and the government and opposition. This lack of support leaves the police force with a clear disincentive to deal with the squatting issue. After a while, policemen learn that it's better to go and do something else.
At the other end of the spectrum, rich business operators evade taxes and many others in the society have huge amounts of assets for which they would be hard put to show the legal avenues through which these assets were earned. While many in our society would seem to discourage the police from going after squatters at the low end, at the high end the tax authorities are not given public and forceful encouragement by the leaders across various sectors of our society to go after those persons who cannot give a lawful account of how they have earned their assets. In the absence of a RICO law, our tax authorities need to become more forceful in confiscating assets that their owners cannot give a lawful account of, or for which they may not have paid the required taxes.
EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES NEED POWERFUL NEW LAWS
After 9/11 in the U.S., the recent subway bombings in London, and long before that the French issue with its Islamic citizenry, these very democratic countries considered and passed laws that at another time they would never even be mentioned in polite society. Fifty six people were killed in London on July seventh when the city's transportation system was attacked by terrorists.
The British government has moved with alacrity to look at new laws that we can be sure will be passed with great speed to deal with the new threat to its society. On some weekends our murder rate comes close to the London number. The French give no quarter whatsoever to criminals at home - no matter how soft they are on the war in Iraq. The Americans are completely intolerant of criminal behaviour - some of which they would even accommodate before 11 September 2001.
In spite of our crime statistics, the prevalence of areas that are said to be outside the authority of the state and the threat to the lives and well being of our common citizens, we are still arguing over whether or not to fingerprint a person who is going to be charged by the police!
We all need to realise that on the spectrum between freedom and security, given our astronomic murder rate, the apparent fearlessness of criminals and their leaders and the fearfulness of our ordinary citizens, the pendulum needs to move closer to the security and safety end. In these extraordinary and murder-filled times, exceptional new and effectual laws are needed by our security forces to tackle crime and murder.
Aubyn Hill is managing partner of Corporate Strategies Limited, a restructuring and financial advisory firm. Respond to: writerhill@gmail.com
