Earl Moxam, Senior Gleaner Writer
Simpson, Stockhausen, Lee Chin and Stewart
No murder in nine months; residents from adjoining streets now free to interact with each other and actually form friendships! And, in neighbouring communities, motor cars are no longer being stolen.
At first blush, these would appear to be the most basic expectations of any one residing in any community in any civilised country.
But for residents of Grants Pen, this was far removed from their reality for a generation.
The new norm is therefore something to savour and cherish. And speak about.
That's just what they did at the last Gleaner Editors' Forum, held at Amcham Place, Community Policing and Services Centre on Grants Pen Road.
Pilot project
The ongoing transformation is what Becky Stockhausen, executive director of Amcham, describes as part of a journey.
That journey, for her, began in 2001 when AmCham secured the agreement of the PERF organisation (Police Executive Research Forum) of the United States to come and conduct research "to find out why there were so many homicides in this beautiful country."
The 12-member PERF team eventually presented an 83-point plan of action to the Government. Prominent among these was the introduction of a comprehensive community policing programme.
Violence-torn Grants Pen, a socially-deprived enclave perched uneasily on the periphery of more affluent neighbourhoods in Upper St. Andrew, was picked to be the pilot project for this experiment in improved police-community relations.
For Donovan Corcho, a longtime resident of the community, it could not have come at a better time.
"You couldn't come to Grants Pen after six o'clock in the evening and see dogs on the street, because even the dogs used to be shot. It was a ghost town," he reminisced gravely.
As for the human inhabitants of the community, divided by political cleavages and turf wars, there was just no room for the norms of social interaction. The gun was the preferred instrument of settling their differences.
Then there was the much-publicised rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl, whose grossly-violated body was dumped into a gully when her torturers were through with her.
"It traumatised us. Many of us had experienced trauma after trauma, but when that incident occurred, we virtually gave up, saying there was no hope," Corcho recalled.
Things began to look up, however, when the Stella Maris Foundation began its own social intervention initiatives in the community. Suddenly the residents began to understand that others in the wider society cared about what was happening in Grants Pen.
Substantial resources
But transforming Grants Pen would take substantial human and material resources, which was where the collaboration between the PERF team, Amcham and USAID made a huge difference.
Five years later, in January 2006, the physical manifestation of their collaboration was on display for all the world to see: a new community services centre, complete with a 100-member police station, and the new Edna Manley health centre, replacing the old dilapidated clinic.
Raising the money for the buildings was not an easy feat, but the fund-raising duo of Becky Stockhausen and Diana Stewart, Amcham's vice-president, went to work, knocking on many doors in corporate boardrooms.
Their efforts reaped rich rewards, perhaps best typified by a $50 million contribution from National Commercial Bank (NCB) at the insistence of the bank's chairman, Michael Lee Chin.
"There is a comment that he (Lee Chin) often makes and we live by, that we can't be an island of prosperity in a sea of poverty. And I refer to the concept of poverty not just in the context of economics, but also in the social context of things," said Denis Cohen, deputy group director, NCB.
Funding for the health centre came principally from the National Health Fund.
"Naturally, the impact and the side effects of crime and so on do impact on the health of individuals and of the community, so there was a concern and a requirement to ensure that the health facility that was being placed in the community would be supportive of the initiative," explained Rae Barrett, executive director of the NH.
Entering the model police station in Grants Pen is an experience like no other in Jamaica. The uninitiated visitor, upon entering the foyer, would be forgiven for believing he had mistakenly stepped into one of New Kingston's upscale corporate offices.
Off to one side is a bills payment office; on the other side, a cyber centre with young people engrossed in their work. Look straight ahead, however, and you are greeted by smiling police officers, ready to respond to your queries.
The concept is new to Jamaica: A multi-purpose service centre, of which the police station is but one; there to respond to the needs of clients.
"It brings the people and police closer together and helps to break down the 'police informer' culture," Stockhausen explained.
Upstairs in his equally-impressive office, Inspector Michael Simpson, sub-officer in charge of the station, surveys the adjoining streets.
"We moved in here in November last year (two months before the official opening) and in the nine months since, there has not been one murder in the community," he reports proudly. The contrast with the previous nine months when nine persons were killed could not be starker.
The police, he said, had had a significant impact on the community (population of approximately 11,000), a fact which he attributed largely to the training he and his men and women had received in community policing.
"When we started, we walked in the community, rode bicycles and spoke to people in there. We did all of this to get the confidence of them, build the trust around our presence, and it is working," Insp. Simpson asserted.
Listening on the telephone from overseas to that testimonial was Robert Olson, who served as the PERF community policing adviser in Grants Pen for more than a year.
He credited the improvements cited to, among other things, the establishment of trust between the police and the community, "which at the time in Grants Pen clearly did not exist at all."
Significant strides had been made by the time he left in April, according to Olson, including a programme to bring the police and residents together, enhanced policing capacity, and training in safe encounters.
Congressional support
The work of Olson and others from PERF in the area of community policing was financed through allocations approved by the U.S. Congress. These congressional provisions were unprecedented and only came about when several key lawmakers on Capitol Hill were convinced of the wisdom of supporting this Jamaican programme.
The lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill were led by Karen Turner, mission director for USAID in Jamaica. The support came, she said, when it was recognised "that this issue of crime and violence was a core development issue for Jamaica and really necessitated USAID's involvement, because that was one of the things we were here to do."
Meanwhile, USAID, convinced that it got the formula right in Grants Pen, is looking to replicate the model in at least two other troubled communities, Flanker in St. James being one of the prime targets.
Delroy Chuck, MP for North East St. Andrew, beaming with pride at what has been achieved in Grants Pen, so far, characterised it as "probably the main catalyst that is going to make Grants Pen into the model community that I dream of."
