Andrew Holness and his JLP have made their clearest action in their steady move to make Jamaica a police state. The most recent action was taken by his minister for constitutional affairs who made it clear that the government will be looking to amend the bail act so that individuals charged for gun crimes or murder will no longer be eligible for bail. This was followed up a week later by the PM declaring the entire parish to be under a State of Emergency after recent gang flareups in the parish became too heavy for the police to handle by ‘traditional’ means.
These actions by the government have been met by a certain section of the public who cheer it on as they cower under the everyday violence which gets worse. Another section has been either very cautious in greeting this plan or flatly opposed it. Those who oppose it naturally point t the constitution and the rights that will be trampled on if this is passed, those in favour point to the ever-increasing number of dead Jamaicans and ask at what point individual rights give way to collective security.
An interesting argument, one filled with emotion and facts on both sides, but one which has been had before. I am not interested in either of the sides, yes rights must be protected and yes some individual rights will have to be paused if we are to seriously deal with crime – a separate issue which we will get back to – but missing in all of this is the fact that no one has analysed whether Jamaica in its current makeup and not some idealised paper version, is ready and worthy to have such powers and would they use it well?
Countless articles highlight what has gone on in foreign lands to deal with crime, pointing to the US, UK etc, but that is like comparing Usain Bolt to Tom Brady, different athletes in different sports, we must therefore look at like for like. How have Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador dealt with their crime waves would be something interesting to investigate.
But back to the question of worthiness, has the Jamaican state proven itself worthy of the awesome power of indefinite detention to stem crime? The short answer is no, a look at their handling of only the recent State of Emergencies implemented in Western Jamaica is proof of that. Persons who were held for over a year were once the SOE was lifted, released without charge.
The same thing is now being played out in the clansman one don trial where persons who have been held for 4 years are suddenly being released, charges dropped and touching the road as if nothing happened.
A serious question, if you have a man in jail for a whole year and release him without charge how would indefinite detention help you? If after 4 years in jail and the most hyped trial in Jamaica people are being released from murder and gun charges for want of evidence and chain of custody, how would indefinite detention solve that? The short answer is it won’t, and the sad part is this short-sighted thing being done to gain votes will cost the state as persons bring suits against the state for wrongful imprisonment as was recently done.
But a separate issue – relating to worthiness, is the fact that the entire system which is supposed to be enforced by the SOE simply doesn’t work, it is not fit for purpose. People who are locked up are not afforded a speedy trial, this action will only (if it goes through) seriously dent if not forever harm the attempts to clear court backlogs. Imagine waiting 5 years for the completion of a trial and multiply that by 1,000 and the problems become apparent (the Ministry of Justice is pushing for plea deals not necessarily because they are the best but because it clears up the backlog).
We look at the fact that crime in this country is a lucrative business and the money is washed by someone, the planes and runways bringing in and out the drugs are owned by someone. The SOE and indefinite detention will not affect the bankers, the construction companies, the car dealers, the jewellers, the politician, and the list goes on who has washed their money and who enables them to do what they do. It is true that the gangs of today are not beholden to politicians as in the old days, but the connections remain and run deep and their links to the private sector which has always and will always have a seedy underbelly. While the gangster will be scrapped up and held, their enabler will not, their muscle will not, and their financial backer will not so the ready-made system will remain in place when the new gangster emerges.
On a serious note, it is well understood and accepted that the political parties in no small part led us to this situation. It is alleged (and the anecdotal evidence is hard to argue against) that they gave birth to the gangs and that when their creation got too big, they let it roam only to step in when things got too excessive. With that history handed down from parent to child since the 70s, the question is do we trust them to fix it? Do we trust the same parties that have the same people or the children of the same people (as if to mimic some aristocratic clique), people who have never acknowledged their ills and sought atonement to fix the issues?
Do we expect the parties who benefit from the garrison politics which is undergirded by the gun in the gangsters’ hands to fix the problem? Do we expect and trust the politicians who have on campaign the very same gangsters and make ditties using songs from gangster labels to eradicate the problem?
Personally, I have no faith in parties and people who in one instance hype up social intervention, seek foreign funding for it, but refuse to train the cohorts needed to do the work and then denigrate it as non-functional even while crafting no plan or form of measuring success so we can adjust and move (as our National Security Minister has done). Personally, I do not trust people whose only plan seems to be repeating the ACID squads, Gun Court, Suppression of Crime act and other failed policies while doing nothing to ensure that the environment that creates crime in this country is changed.
I don’t trust the politicians who refuse to do the work needed to change society making it more equitable because it is hard or a long-term process which they won’t be able to take immediate credit for and instead empower the police to scrape up 100 youths 70 of whom are totally innocent and will have then lost their employment and have a hell of a time finding new jobs.
Everyone in this land knows that crime is a key issue that needs to be dealt with. Not one of the people opposed to this measure hug up criminals, all have been affected deeply by the violence and they understand that yes, some heavy hands will be needed. The question always comes back to do you trust these people to wield these powers? Do you trust them to lock up their paymasters for 4 years without charge while they dig through the establishments they run as laundromats for crime proceeds?
We know how this will turn out and we can safely guess why these measures are being brought in. scores will be scrapped up without charge, they will be the poorest among us at first, and violence will be kept to the communities that they were ‘supposed to remain in’ so businesses can operate safely in the knowledge that the police and army have the plebes under manners. We are supposed to all be idiots, we are supposed to believe that these measures are for our interests when they are to protect the golden goose that is tourism. The first ZOSO was announced when Montego Bay got hot, and this is now being announced shortly after the US issued a warning due to rampant violence.
This is not about the little man; this is about cementing the power of the security forces so people can’t change the status quo. Crime and the issues surrounding it could be dealt with overnight as seen by Nicaragua, education, social intervention a strong society and yes, a strong security force are needed to end this. All of this however runs counter to what is accepted ideology, capitalism, I got mine go look for yours, an ideology which breeds violence and crime and a society that wants immediate gains.
Our politicians from both parties are of this ideology and as the world gets set to enter upheavals it has not seen since the inter-war period the politicians empower the security forces and ramp up segregation to make the oppression of those who seek change easier. This here is the frog in the pot, we all want crime dealt with, so we are ok with this heat. Will we be ok with the heat when bread gets to $600 a loaf and people can’t afford it because an empowered security force and these laws spell the violent crushing of any protest along the lines of the now near-mythical gas riots and the scrapping up of its instigators? We have choices to make, we must do something about the crime, but not anything. We must not further empower people and entities that have shown themselves to be a part of the problem. Yes, sacrifices will have to be made, let us the people decide what they are and how they should be sacrificed while dealing with them and that means the people getting power. Issues will not be fixed by those who caused them and who do nothing to change the conditions leading people to crime, they will be fixed by the people deciding how to deal with them and how the solutions will be implemented in an even fashion and not in a biased way aimed to cowing people while not going after the roots of the problem.
jamaicachange 