CgCED CARIBBEAN GROUP FOR COOPERATION IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

CONTROLLING THE JAMAICAN CRIME PROBLEM: PEACE BUILDING AND COMMUNITY ACTION

DISCUSSION DRAFT

Anthony Harriott Department of Government The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus CONTROLLING THE JAMAICAN CRIME PROBLEM: PEACE BUILDING AND COMMUNITY ACTION

June 2000

Department of Government The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus Table Of Contents Page No. 1. Introduction...... 1 2. Defining the Problem...... 3 3. Sources of High Rate of Violent Crime...... 12 4. Constraints on the Development of Policy ...... 16 5. Some Possible Initiatives...... 19 6. Community Crime Control and Peace Building...... 20 7. Community control and Reform of the Criminal Justice System...... 22 8. Order in Public Places ...... 26 9. Implementation Strategies...... 28 10. Conclusion ...... 29 11. Endnotes...... 30 12. References ...... 31

Tables

Table 1 - Reported Property crimes vs. Violent Crimes 1977-98...... 5 Table 2 - Rate of Violent Crimes (per 1000,000 citizens) ...... 6 Table 3 - Gun Use in Most Serious Crimes 1988-98...... 7

- iii - 1. Introduction

The problems of crime and the quality of justice have become central issues in public debate and important public policy concerns in a number of Caribbean countries. This problem is perhaps most acute in Jamaica which has acquired an unenviable reputation for having a high rate of violent crime.

To better understand the crime phenomena in the region and to become more effective in the field of crime control, policy has to be better informed by research. There is however a huge research deficit as until recently little administrative attention was paid to the development of criminal justice as a social focus and as an area of academic research. For example, with regard to Jamaica, there have been no evaluations of existing policing, sentencing and correctional policies. Judges have considerable discretionary powers and may consider a varied sentencing menu, yet they and the policy makers have no idea what types of sentences work best for reducing recidivism. The rehabilitation programmes have never been properly evaluated, as a result no institutional learning occurs and no new innovations are developed to make these programmes more effective. These are profoundly utilitarian concerns to which some may object, but they are consistent with the primary purpose (of social defense) for which the criminal justice system claims it is devised. While the problems are becoming progressively more complicated, the institutions of the criminal justice system are largely working with the traditional tools and on the inertia of tradition. Indeed, in some cases there are no explicit and coherently articulated policies.

It is now rather trite to suggest that crime and criminality are complex phenomena. This complexity is reflected in the lack of consensus in the field. It is perhaps still worthwhile making this point because while the idea of the complexity of crime may be readily accepted, it does not always inform our expectations in dealing with this phenomenon, nor even our appreciation of the magnitude of the research inputs and the institutional support that may be required to develop successful crime control policies.

The purpose of this paper is to present some basic ideas on crime control in Jamaica- with a - 1 - view to stimulating the debate on appropriate policy responses to this serious problem. It tries to highlight some general principles that may be useful for policy development, to suggest an approach to the problem rather than a blue print for action. If a few concrete suggestions are made, these are intended simply to illustrate the general points or to provide material for further elaboration and refinement.

Criminality is influenced by the interaction of complex sets of factors operating at the individual, situational and social structural levels, but crime rates are essentially products of societies. To lower crime rates thus entails focusing the necessary interventions at the societal level and making the society and polity less criminogenic. This does not preclude some attention to problem at the level of the individual; but this kind of micro treatment of the problem is simply not the focus of this paper. If this paper makes a worthwhile contribution, it is in trying to reconceptualize the problem of criminal violence. It seeks to assert that much of the violence experienced in Jamaica is simply a matter of ordinary criminality but rather the outcome of a profoundly political power dynamic and attempts to make the case for a more unconventional short- term response to this violence. First a brief description of the problem will be presented. This is followed by a discussion of some of the principles that I believe should inform policy development.

- 2 - 2. Defining the Problem

While policy should be informed by an appreciation of the problem involving at least an analytic description of it, policy elaboration need not await a definitive analysis of its sources or the causes. Such a definitive analysis could develop as part of a programme of intervention that is continuously subjected to critical scrutiny and proper evaluation. This is not to suggest that present policy is not informed by theory, but rather that it is only implicitly so informed. Like most criminal justice systems, the Jamaican system, is deeply influenced by classical rational choice theory and its derivatives. The basic idea of this theory is that as rational, utility-maximizing and free-willed subjects, individuals freely choose to commit crimes and commit to criminal careers. Such decisions, at both the event and career levels, are assumed to be shaped by the perceived benefits of crime weighted against its perceived costs, that is, Bentham’s “felicity calculus1.” Thus by structuring the cost of criminal offending, the state is able to deter crime. In the contemporary setting, this perspective is usually associated with a state centred approach focused on the manipulation of punishment - its certainty, celerity and proportionality. While there is perhaps some value in this approach, it has largely proved to be inadequate and ineffective. However, even within this framework, there is considerable scope for widening the types of intervention and going beyond the simple manipulation of punishment. For example, the theory does not logically exclude deterrence measures that increase the opportunity costs of crime by creating increased job opportunities and similar programmes that increase the stake in conventional careers, but this is not usually emphasized. More immediately, if policy is not to be informed by an explicit coherent framework, it should at least be informed by a factually correct definition of the problem.

Since the mid-1980s, the crime rate in Jamaica has tended to decline. This is true of reported crimes as well as the real rate of victimization. Measures of the rate of victimization using survey methodology confirm the decline reported by the police.2

This decreasing crime rate is largely accounted for by a decline in property crimes. Between 1987 and 1998, the rate of property crimes fell sharply from 786\100,000 to 342\100,000.3 The rate of reported property crimes in Jamaica compares favorably with some developed countries such as

- 3 - the USA and the UK and even with some Caribbean countries such as Barbados, which enjoy reputations for being fairly safe. For example, in 1996, while the rate of total reported crime in Barbados was 3966\100,000, in Jamaica, a rate of 2261\100,000 was recorded.4

In Jamaica, while the rate of property crime has been declining, for most of the last three decades, the rate of violent crime and particularly murder has been steadily increasing. In 1977, the rate of violent crime was 758\100,00, but by 1996, it had increased to 985\100,000 [see Table 1]. Policy development requires detail. The trends for the more serious violent crimes are therefore given in Table 2. The increase in rates for all categories of violent crime is evident and some positive association between some of these categories is to be expected. For example, it may reasonably be expected that the rate of shootings will be positively associated with the rate of murder. But murder, which is the most important problem, is not simply an outcome associated with the execution of other crimes. It is interesting that the generalized decline in violent crime began with the decline in the rate of robberies (in 1996). This corresponds with the period of rapid development of the extortion rackets in Kingston whereby commercial enterprises are forced to pay the “dons” of organized crime for “protection” against robbery and the related revival and proliferation of the informal community courts – a matter to which I will return.

- 4 - Table 1. Reported Property crimes vs. Violent Crimes 1977-98

Year Property Crimes Violent Crimes ______Number Rate Number Rate

1998 8,769 342.0 19,781 771.0 1996 13,534 541.4 24,617 984.7 1994 14,353 575.0 22,394 897.1 1992 14,521 588.6 20,173 817.7 1990 16,158 669.0 20,698 857.0 1988 15,336 650.4 19,456 825.1 1986 19,301 822.6 19,228 819.5 1984 19,607 853.7 21,186 922.4 1982 17,592 776.6 19,867 876.9 1980 17,602 809.2 24,201 1112.5 1978 33,191 1563.1 16,640 783.6 1977 30,315 1445.7 15,893 757.9 Source: Harriott 1997.

These developments have resulted in considerable insecurity and a great fear of violent criminal victimization among all social groups in the society [see Harriott 1998]. However, since 1998, the rate of violent crime, including the homicide rate, has declined somewhat. The reported homicide rate has declined from 40\100,000 in 1997 to 33\100,000 in 1999.5 Nevertheless, with a murder rate of 33\100,000, Jamaica still ranks as the most murderous country in the Caribbean.6

- 5 - Table 2 Rate of Violent Crimes (per 1000,000 citizens) ------Year Murder Shooting Rape Robbery ------1998 33 48 55 116 1996 38 69 72 179 1994 28 51 44 222 1992 26 45 46 205 1990 22 57 42 222 1988 18 42 47 188 1986 19 45 47 188 1984 21 57 39 216 ------Source: computed from data supplied by the Statistics Unit of the JCF.

The communities of the marginalized urban inner-city poor are most affected by this murderous violence. In 1993, the majority of victims were young (65% <35 years), urban residents (70%), male (89%) and were either unemployed or self-employed. The social profile of the offenders is quite similar to that of their victims. This pattern of intra-class victimization has largely remained. Homicidal violence is in general a male on male, poor on poor, urban phenomenon. As I have argued elsewhere, unlike in the early post-colonial period, in the contemporary period most homicides are not primarily the outcomes of “domestic” conflicts. If they were, there would be a higher proportion of female deaths and a more widely dispersed class, area and age distribution of victims and offenders [see Harriott 1997]. They are rather primarily the outcomes of inter-group conflicts across the communities of the urban poor.

Most of these murders and indeed most violent crimes are facilitated by easy access to illegal firearms. In 1998, 64% of all murders were committed with a firearm, representing an increasing trend in firearm use as the preferred instrument of murder. In 1988, the corresponding

- 6 - figure was 41%. This trend in firearm use extends to other violent crimes such as rape and robbery. In 1998, 38% and 61% of these respective crimes were committed with firearms. In 1998, 61% of the most serious violent crimes (that is, murder, rape, robbery and shootings) were committed with firearms, representing an increase of 23% relative to 1988 (48%).7 Table 3 indicates that there has been a steady decline in gun use -when all violent crimes are aggregated. Unfortunately, this is not a totally positive development as this relative decline in gun use is primarily due to an increase in violent incidents involving the use of other implements.

Table 3 Gun Use in Most Serious Crimes 1988-98 (%)

Year Murder Rape Robbery Violent Crime

1998 68 38 61 20

1996 68 19 51 21

1994 56 24 53 21

1992 49 18 46 19

1990 50 17 57 23

1988 41 16 45 29

Data source: The Statistics Unit. Jamaica Constabulary Force.

The immediate policy implication of this analysis, is that if indeed violent crimes have a relatively independent logic (their rates are not positively associated with the movement of the general crime rate), then a strategy for reducing the crime rate that does not directly treat with the particular dynamics of violence may not be of great help in controlling it. From a policy

- 7 - perspective this would suggest that the celebrated zero-tolerance strategy which has been credited with the reduction of the crime rate in parts of the USA (where the rate of property and violent crimes tend to be positively associated), would be unlikely to yield much success in controlling violent crimes in the Jamaican environment. Yet this zero-tolerance strategy has a great appeal and has been highly propagandized by the authorities in New York and commended to the world [see Bratton 1998].

Intellectual authorship of this strategy may be attributed to James Wilson and George Kelling developed the core ideas in their celebrated work Broken Windows: The Police and Neighbourhood Safety [Wilson and Kelling 1982].8 George Kelling and Catherine Coles further elaborated these ideas in their recent book Fixing Broken Windows [Kelling and Coles 1996]. The logic of the “broken windows” strategy is that if petty crimes and misdemeanors, particularly public order offences such as defacing and littering public places and peddling in the streets (figurative broken windows) are controlled, then this should yield dividends in terms of a reduction in all categories of crime. This logic has a wide appeal. For example, the Jamaican police argue that the disorder created by uncontrolled street vending tend to facilitate the activity of pickpockets, confidence artistes and similar types of criminals. This strategy rests on the view that disorder invites crime. Run down communities it is then argued, are thus likely to have higher crime rates than properly maintained ones. There are exceptions to this such as the garrison communities of Western Kingston, the dynamics of which (based on the political variable) are beyond the imagination of theorists who are unfamiliar with this reality.9 Nevertheless, in general, properly maintained communities suggest a more interested population and higher levels of citizen surveillance and informal control. The general proposition proffered here is that if the broad population is actively and deliberately involved in helping to ensure an orderly environment and in the process of doing this strengthen civic pride and the informal surveillance of public spaces, then this is likely to result in an environment that is more intolerant of street crimes. From this latter perspective, this strategy may be of some value to Jamaica, but the Jamaican pattern of criminal offences suggest that more is required to control violent crimes.

Despite the recent decline in the homicide rate for Jamaica, it ranks about 5th in the

- 8 - hemisphere thus grouping Jamaica with a number of rather troubled countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala which may be described as facing profound crises with regard to public safety.10 This definition of the Jamaican situation of course has implications for the approach to the treatment of the problem. The issue here is, what is the threshold of tolerance of the use of lethal violence in the society? At what level of violence are emergency type measures warranted? Here emergency measures is not to be equated with law and order or State of Emergency type measures that would unnecessarily increase police powers and allow for arbitrary arrests and other abuses of power and serve to strengthen the already existing impulses to try to solve the problems by taking an authoritarian-like road to further disorder; it is intended to suggest a definition of the problem that triggers a consensus that the society ought to mobilize the resources consistent with a reordering of its priorities to deal with the violence and the related problems of the inner-city communities and to apply a sense of urgency and determination to the efforts to reform the criminal justice system and to make it a more authoritative and effective instrument for crime prevention and control. For example, in the event of a hurricane, the society would rightly expect the government to mobilize the emergency services and voluntary groups and to divert resources from other projects to this effort in order to return the country to a normal life described in terms of the status quo ante. If there were a lower level of dislocation, such as a flooding, a commensurate level of mobilization would be expected. In all instances, once an emergency situation is recognized, and the level of emergency defined, the administration is expected to respond with the effort required to return the country to a “normal” state. One does not define a problem in crisis terms only to continue with business as usual. The difficulty in treating the homicide problem in this way is that it has (with the exception of periods of electoral campaigning) increased incrementally and given the society time to psychologically adjust. Moreover, most of the victims and offenders are from the urban marginalized poor, and a significant number of the victims often engage in behaviour that precipitate their own victimization (predatory criminality, violent self help, breeches of trust in conditions where the disadvantaged party has no legal means of redress).

As noted earlier, current research (by the author) suggests that the homicide rate in Jamaica is being driven not by domestic violence, nor even inter-personal violence more generally, as was the case prior to the 1980s and is still popularly believed to be the case, but by group interactive

- 9 - conflicts that may be variously triggered by the robbery or rape of someone from a neighbouring community, the activities of gangs and organized crime or even explicitly political conflicts among other types of events. Much of this violence is driven by a complex of different interrelated forces and is best understood in terms of the socio-political geography of the problem. The problem of homicidal violence is concentrated in the socially marginalized inner-city communities of Kingston and Spanish Town where party political affiliation has helped to shape the identity of these communities and where conflict between these communities have persisted for some three decades, appearing at different times as political conflicts, as gang conflicts or as disputes triggered by organized crime. In many cases there is an unbroken line of continuity between the successive and alternating types of “wars” – with the blood debts and demonizing of the enemy in one war being carried forward to the next. And always, regardless of the precipitant, the number and type of actors initially involved and the nature of the conflicts (in their early stages), there is a larger inter- community dynamic that frames and add fuel to them. New conflicts are fitted into old patterns, aggregated and given larger meaning that presents them as threatening to the interests of larger collectives such as the gang, crew, family, community or political party. This tends to lend a greater emotional intensity to them than would otherwise be the case were they not treated in this way. Many seemingly trivial inter-personal problems may thus rapidly develop into major inter-group conflicts that result in the loss of many lives. Much of this violence may be characterized as a kind of communal conflict. The communities therefore have developed strong support systems that positively name the protagonists as community “fighters” and “protectors”, bestow on many of them heroic status and help to block police attempts to apprehend and convict them [see Harriott 1997]. These communities make a distinction between these “fighters” and ordinary criminals. In this context, the social dynamics are such that inter-personal conflicts at times quickly escalate into gang conflicts and inter-community “wars” and gang conflicts. Depending on the system of alliances involved, may quickly involve a number of communities and may even be defined in party political terms without the active involvement of the formal party organization. These inter-group conflicts tend to have long histories with elements on the different sides accumulating large blood debts. The killing of friends and relatives in past wars remain etched in the memories of the living, resulting in simple or seemingly trivial events at times triggering new “wars”. Both the escalation dynamic described above and the seemingly intractable character of these conflicts are fuelled by

- 10 - what may be best described as near communal identities that were shaped by the socio-political geography of inner-city Kingston, the identification with place and party and the violence legitimating community reinforcements associated with this reality. This can hardly be regarded as ordinary criminal violence and the people in these communities do not define it as such. With the homicide rate in some of these areas at times exceeding 150 incidents per 100,000 citizens, the description of this reality as “war” is perhaps appropriate. To treat this as ordinary criminal violence is to miss opportunities to solve, or at least control, this problem including the escalation dynamic described above by new and more appropriate approaches. I will return to this in the discussion of the initiatives commended below.

This conflict dynamic has developed in a context of the marginalization of the inner-city poor. Elsewhere I have argued that the lack of legitimate opportunities over a long period of time, in the context of social exclusion, has led to efforts to develop and alternate opportunity structure around drugs, protection rackets and other informal activity [Harriott 1997]. Ability to access these alternate opportunities is dependent on a demonstration of a different set of qualities than those promoted by the traditional normative system. Here aggressiveness and the mastery of violence may become an asset, and the norms of the society become easily devalued, as one’s achieved status (or achieving one’s status aspirations) is not positively associated with adherence to them.

In an attempt to discipline the scope of the paper and to focus on particular aspects of the problem, it is easy to oversimplify matters. In order to have a proper perspective on crime control in contemporary Jamaica, it must be understood that crime is no longer simply due to the push factors (lack of legitimate opportunities, social marginalization), but with the development of an alternate or illegal opportunity structure, to pull factors as well. The latter may be accounted for by the high-profile models of success and the seeming high rewards and low risks associated with organized crime, the attractiveness of the drug trade as a source of quick wealth, the glamour and status of the “Dons” of organized crime and the perceived impunity of the white-collar criminals in the financial services who have gotten away with cheating their clients and the taxpayers (who have had to bail out the failed banks) of hundreds of millions of dollars. This implies that any worthwhile crime control strategy must involve depriving these symbols of successful criminality of

- 11 - their ill-gotten wealth and status. Some instruments have recently been created to deal with this such as the Assets Forfeiture and Money Laundering legislation, but there have not been any noticeable results thus far. This is not surprising as in Jamaica, as is the case with most countries, the law and law enforcement has historically been directed downward. The lack of results merits the consideration of other constraints.

- 12 - 3. Sources of the High rate of Violent Crime

To conclude this section of the paper, the immediate sources of the high rate of violent crime in Jamaica will be quickly summarised and highlighted. The issue is explicitly posed as the sources of the extraordinarily high rate of violent crime, as this presents the problem in a modest and manageable way as being in the first instance, one of how to return Jamaica to an “ordinary” level of violence. By this is loosely meant, a condition whereby the typical law abiding citizen does not feel particularly at risk, economic activity is not disrupted, and normal social life in the communities of the poor (attending school, or going to the market) may be conducted largely free from a constant fear of violent victimization.

• By posing the central problem in this way, our attention is directed to the escalation dynamic associated with these violent conflicts. This has been explained in terms of the near communal identities of these communities and the associated processes whereby these conflicts are aggregated or fitted into past patterns of conflict and seen as forming part of larger collective struggle against opposing interests (gang, area, community, political party). These conflicts are thus best prevented from entering this trajectory by improved inter-community, inter-group relations and are most effectively controlled by inter-group mediation.

• The above reality is compounded by the existence of garrison communities that offer protection and encouragement to elements engaged in outwardly projected violence and criminality. These communities tend to be expansionist and to jealously guard their identities as politically homogeneous entities. Expansionism foments violence with other communities and the obsession with political homogeneity direct violence against internal dissidents. These garrisons provide a hostile environment for the Security Forces and safe havens for politically affiliated criminals and for the preservation of illegal firearms.

• The marginalization of a high proportion of the urban poor who inhabit the slums of Kingston and the large towns of Jamaica (Spanish Town, Montego Bay) indirectly contributes handsomely to the problem of violent crime. The inner city communities are - 13 - an expression of the geographic concentration and social exclusion of the large mass of chronically unemployed, the underemployed and the “unemployable” hustlers and other socially marginalized people. But not only are these people marginalized, they also stigmatised as violent, lazy and uninterested in work and inclined to criminality. They therefore regard themselves as having little hope of integration into the shrinking formal economy and increasingly competitive labour market. One consequence of this has been the development of the informal sector and a relatively large underground in which drugs plays and important part. Transactions in the underground are secured by the threat of force or the actual use of violence.

• One consequence of marginalization is reduced access to public security. The neglect of the police who may be frustrated by the interminable inner-city violence tends to foster self-help among the citizens of these areas. The consequent alienation from the system and especially poor relations with the police completes the circle by in turn contributing to a reluctance to have these institutions handle criminal events or potentially troubling conflicts. Self-help efforts in these matters tend to involve the use of violence. Moreover, the system was not designed to deal with inter-group conflicts, it rather responds to the individual incidents associated with these conflicts. Similarly, the inaccessibility of the Courts, the high cost of adjudicating civil conflicts often leads to self-help measures that may involve contracting the services of criminals to settle these disputes – which again usually involves the use of violence.

• Easy access to firearms is a notable contributor to the high rate of violence. As noted above, most homicides are committed with the aid of firearms. Every year there are over 1000 non-fatal shootings and in 1998, the rate of non-fatal shootings was 48\100,000.11 The National Firearm and Drug Intelligence Centre (NFDIC) estimates that most of these weapons are illegally imported into Jamaica from the USA. There they easily secured and as easily exported to Jamaica as outward cargo is not routinely checked by US Customs or other police agencies. Interestingly, the systematic checking of outgoing cargo for contraband is considered too costly for American commerce, as this it is argued

- 14 - would impose unnecessary delays on legitimate exports. Guns are therefore widely accessible in the Kingston underground. Even persons who do not own such weapons, may still have access to them either as members of groups that control cashes of guns, or are able to get one on loan, or for rent, or on condition that they return a percentage of the take from the crime in which the firearm is to be used.

The above is not an exhaustive list, it simply highlights what is considered to be the main sources of the problem and the points that figure more centrally in the analysis. Other factors such as parental neglect is a source of delinquency and facilitator of gang formation. This is particularly true of the formation of conflict gangs composed of delinquent teenagers. These groups are not linked to organized crime – but which tend to foment armed conflicts with similar groups from other communities. Of course increased parental neglect in the communities of the poor is related to the nature of female participation in the labour force – the low skill low wage 807 or domestic services sector which means that wages have to be supplemented by hustling – leaving little time for attention to children particularly in single mother households. Moreover, the poor housing conditions, high household density and absence of organized community activities leads to parents encouraging children to participate in unsupervised peer group activity on the streets late in the nights. These are important, but more long-term policy concerns.

- 15 - 4. Constraints on the Development of Policy

Good policy is realistic policy. A “good” idea that that cannot be sustained given the resource limitations of Jamaica may be a good idea for a resource rich country, but it is a poor idea for Jamaica. It is thus perhaps best to explicitly state some of these constraints on the process.

These constraints include, firstly, the nature of the political environment. The inescapable truth is that the social conditions and social structure influences the rate and patterns of offending in a society and public policy influences and helps to shape these conditions and therefore affects the crime rates. Without diminishing the responsibility of the offender for the particular crime, the society and its political administrators must also recognize and accept some responsibility for the crime rate and the duty to correct this by making the society less criminogenic. This implies some societal reforms and changes in political structures and the operative political methodology of patron-clientelism which has been so ably described by Professor Carl Stone [see Stone 1986]. This political method is associated with high level of corruption, the facilitation of white-collar crime and the reinforcement of street gangs and organized crime groups who are able to secure state contracts.

Existing research suggests that while there is much in the Jamaican value system and even beliefs about the sources of crime that leads to support for social crime control as a desirable way of dealing with the problem [see Harriott 1997], the country is perhaps not yet prepared to support a policy direction that emphasizes any grand effort at social crime control. Moreover, the reality is that such projects tend to yield little crime reduction benefits as they are usually not sufficiently targeted on crime, but instead usually involve simply doing good - such as reducing poverty, providing housing and so forth (some of which, when implemented in accordance with traditional clientelistic methodology, may even further compound the crime problem). The environment at the moment favors a “get tough” approach including lawless crime control and quick and rough justice.

- 16 - Secondly, there are serious resource constraints. The ideas, innovations, and “solutions” that are likely to have a chance of being considered feasible must therefore be of the low cost type. This is a realistic approach. The importation of high cost “solutions” from the developed countries that may yield little results in the Jamaican environment and that are not financially sustainable should be avoided. An example of this kind of problem is the over-reliance of the police on motorized patrols resulting in a large but unsustainable fleet of cars. As this fleet is not properly maintained, citizens in need of emergency services are often told that the police are unable to respond to their calls because of the unavailability of vehicles. Given that their tactics are fixed, the police typically respond to the resulting pressures from the people for improved service by political mobilization for the required resources rather than seek to develop more sustainable tactics and methods that are consistent with the resource limitations of the country. This may mean for example, a more dedicated use of motor car patrols and the increased use of other low cost motorized forms as well greater emphasis on community policing.12

Thirdly, we are forced to operate with small pool of experts and truly innovative minds. It is difficult to readily think of any internally conceptualized innovations that have come out of the Jamaican criminal justice system since Independence. There are however a few. In a context of extreme case overload, one recent idea by the Chief Justice of Jamaica, the Hon. Lensley Wolfe, to simply change the hour at which the courts begin to more closely approximate the working hours of most state institutions, has been met with great resistance by the bar. This means that innovations in policing, in methods of processing offenders in the courts, or new efforts in corrections and offender rehabilitation - should start on a small scale, thereby allowing the leaders in innovation to develop on the various policy initiatives and seek to extract and generalize the lessons from these projects. In this kind of environment, demonstrable successes rather than the force of reason or the appeal of good ideas is what best drives reform.

These limiting factors set the parameters for the development of policy. They perhaps help to explain why typically most administrations have tended to respond to the crime problem with symbolic measures aimed at assuaging the fears and momentary emotions of the citizenry during crime waves rather substantive or deliberatively substantive measures. The tradition has been to “

- 17 - fight” criminals, not crime.

- 18 - 5. Some Possible Initiatives

A comprehensive policy response should include reform aimed at improving the quality of justice and access to a more responsive criminal justice system. While improving the effectiveness of the crime control efforts and improving the quality of justice are related objectives, they should be seen as conceptually distinct and independent objectives. Improving the quality of justice is a worthy end in itself; it has its own justification. A case for this objective should not be made simply in terms of its effect on crime control. For example, the National Task Force on Crime suggested a number of humanitarian measures intended to improve the conditions in the prisons as well as other measures for improving the quality of justice [see Wolfe et. al. 1993]. Many of these proposals have been implemented without these efforts having any direct impact on the crime rate. This does not reduce their value. A proper discussion of such quality of justice issues would require their own independent treatment. But this is not the central thrust of this paper.13 The focus here is on the community initiatives for preventing and controlling violent crime– measures that are best developed outside the criminal justice system, but which the system may be able to play an important part in sustaining. It is only with respect to these types of initiatives that reform of the criminal justice system is discussed.

All aspects of policy, including the reform of the criminal justice system, ought to be anchored in the principle that such programmes should facilitate the development of a more democratic tradition of dealing with issues of criminal justice and crime prevention and control. This ought to be the cardinal principle of policy elaboration. Elsewhere I have discussed the dangers associated with crime control policies that are guided by the principles of authoritarian politics and a paternalistic notion of the role of the state [Harriott 1997]. This is not a purely moral point, it is rather a call to recognize what might or might not work, and in this regard, the value of the active involvement of the citizenry in ensuring public safety and improving the effectiveness of the criminal justice system.

- 19 - 6. Community Crime Control and Peace Building

I have argued that policy should at least be informed by the pragmatic principle (of course circumscribed by the rule of law and other democratic principles) and by facts about the nature of the problem. With this in mind, a key fact that should inform any immediate crime control initiative is the recent reduction in the rate of murder and other serious violent crimes. For example, between 1997 and 1999, the incidents of murder declined by 18%, rape 22%, robberies by 31% and shootings by 31%.14 The police have sought to take credit for this positive change. This understandable, as they have made considerable efforts to improve their performance and it may be reasonably expected that they could in all sincerity claim some positive results. Indeed in the last two years the traditional indicators of police performance such as detection rates have improved. Between 1996 and 1999, the clear up rate for murder increased from 35% to 61% and there were less dramatic improvements in the clear up rates for other categories of serious violent crimes.15 But a careful examination of the data shows that in 1998, the first year of the decline, the reduction in the murder rate was largely limited to Western Kingston where the number of murders fell by a remarkable 51% in that year.16 For most of the other police divisions in the Kingston Metropolitan Area, the murder rate had continued to increase. If improved policing was the primary factor responsible for the decline, then a more even reduction across various divisions would have been expected. Sufficient explanation for the decline in the murder rate may thus be largely restricted to developments in Western Kingston.

The only new development that could logically account for the dramatic reduction in violent crimes in this area is the peace process. In Western Kingston, the Peace was negotiated as a political process – involving local leaders of the political parties and the party affiliated dons, gang and community leaders. Importantly, mechanisms were developed at the community level to enforce the peace. Many former warring communities now have known informal mechanisms for dealing with threats to the peace and a process for dealing with inter-community disputes. The peace is fragile and may even be characterized a truce rather than a peace. As a process, it needs assistance to develop the legitimate institutions and capacities to deal non-violently (but perhaps with some coercive power) with the threats to peace, to negotiate the forgiveness of past blood

- 20 - debts and to truly reconcile the parties and begin a constructive developmental process at the community level, in other words, to progress from a truce to peace.

It is not a pure process. Such processes usually are not. It holds many dangers for the society if the state remains aloof from the peace process and leaves it largely in the hands of the “dons” and criminal entrepreneurs cum political enforcers. Some of these elements now have a strong stake in the peace as they are profiting from its enforcement. Much of Downtown Kingston has been carved up between different extortionist groups who offer protection services. A full description of this is beyond the scope of this paper, but it is manifestly clear that left to themselves these coercive instruments of the peace, as they operate outside of the constraints of the law and proper systems of accountability to the communities in which they operate, are likely to become a source of great injustice (to individuals) and may result in even greater conflicts and disorder. However, the process and the institutions associated with it should be taken as instructive for the state, as an invitation to respond with just and more effective community interventions. The point here is that the reasoned intervention of a more flexible state and criminal justice system are needed to facilitate the involvement of the people within the framework of the law and to shift the balance of power against the ordinary criminals who have either attached themselves to the process or who may try to subvert it.

- 21 - 7. Community control and Reform of the Criminal Justice System

Building on the peace efforts, deepening the process with real peace building is key to any significant short-term reduction in the use of lethal violence. As noted earlier, for 1998, the first year of the peace, there was a sharp reduction in the number of murders in Western Kingston and stability in the following year.17 By 1999, as the peace movement spread to other communities in and beyond Kingston, the decline in the number of homicides had become more generalized . The national homicide data suggests that, beyond the estimated 40% reduction in the national murder rate that it is anticipated could result from the peace and community efforts, more effective policing should be able to further reduce the homicide rate by an additional 12-15 % (using the 1997 rate as the base year). This would cumulatively cut the murder rate by more than one half – even without any positive changes in the economy and the creation of new opportunities (although this reduction would perhaps be reversibly if new opportunities for legitimate income are not created).

As noted earlier, place is key to successful crime prevention and control. This allows for the proper targeting and focusing of resources and the development of environment specific strategies. A community approach also facilitates mobilization of the people, the concentration of their intellectual energies and social power on a resolution of the problems as they are presented in their specificity. Such an approach is vital to the long-term outcomes. Little progress is to be expected if people are not allowed to take greater responsibility for their security and to participate in improving public safety in partnership with the state agencies and NGOs.

A cardinal principle of effective crime control is the linking of informal and formal state control. This is essential to any good policy especially where the legitimacy and moral authority of the state and some of the institutions within the criminal justice system is regarded as dubious. Popular involvement at the community level tends to strengthen the moral authority of the state’s control institutions and improves their effectiveness. The reality is that most disputes are informally handled with variable outcomes. Where there is an incapacity to deal with these disputes in constructive ways (the absence of trusted third parties and so forth), these informal interventions tend to lead to an escalation of violence. There is considerable room for innovation here and for the

- 22 - development of a more flexible criminal justice system with a greater capacity to make constructive informal interventions, although the tendency to accumulate power via centralization certainly militates against this.

A more flexible and service–oriented system may be achieved via new and more responsive institutions that involve the communities and are accountable to them. Community-based policing, community courts and mediation and conflict management institutions that are able to deal with inter-group conflicts, and community sentences and rehabilitation projects are some examples of this.

Reform of the criminal justice system may appropriately begin with the first point of contact with the system – the police. What is required here is to effect a radical change in the style of policing. This would involve redefining the relationship between the police and the people in a more democratic, rights-protecting and law-respecting basis. This entails among other things greater attention to crime prevention and perhaps an appropriate model of community based policing (not community policing).

Historically, in other (British) models of policing, the police prevent crime by: their active presence in the communities and collaboration with the citizens, using their moral authority to persuade people to conform to the norms and laws of the society, maintaining order and ensuring a reduction in the opportunities for crime. This assumes a consensus model and respect for police authority. In Jamaica these cannot be assumed, the authority of the police has been badly eroded and has to be reconstructed via participation and changes in the power arrangements between police and citizens. Short of this, anti-corruption drives and the application of new technologies to crime- fighting may lead to some positive results but these positive results are unlikely to be sustained – if the fundamental relationships and policing style remain unchanged.

Thus a useful starting point would be a reworking of the existing community policing initiative in ways that seek to strengthen community power and help to socially isolate the criminals from the community. This should involve taking more from the community traditions and making

- 23 - policing more of a service to the communities in which the members of the community share with the police the responsibility for the control of crime and the maintenance of order. The existing Neighborhood Watch program for example, makes the citizen the eyes and ears of the police, a worker or “informer” for the police rather than someone simply working to make their community safer with the assistance of the police.

Similar changes to the courts would help to improve the effectiveness of the system. The development by some inner-city communities of community codes of conduct and enforcement mechanisms to control deviant and predatory behavior within their boundaries is an outcome of the ineffectiveness of the criminal justice system and their alienation from it and its definition of their problems. New ways are required to improve access to cheap and relatively quick justice particularly in the violence prone areas of Kingston where these informal courts have developed. It is difficult to specify the form that this would take, but one possibility is a modified petty sessions court that would be established at the community level, that would have extended powers to deal with some types of conflicts and crimes that are now handled by the informal courts. Panels of lay magistrates drawn form the communities (by either a direct or indirect use of the elective principle or some other appropriate principle that is acceptable to the communities) could sit as a kind of collective judge. This would perhaps require that they receive some additional training to make them more competent to handle more complex cases. This could be problematic but then there would always be the right of appeal to a higher court if the parties to the various disputes are not satisfied with the rulings of the community courts. My general point here is that there are always lessons to be learnt from the informal arrangements and the challenge of the formal system is how to adapt and respond to these developments.

These measures could be accompanied by the engagement of the communities in aspects of situational crime prevention beginning with physically cleaning-up the communities as a joint project with the police and other state agencies. As community power is accumulated via such small accomplishments in situational crime prevention, their efforts could then be extended to more challenging projects such as removing drug houses from their communities, putting pressure on young people to disband gangs or at least to avoid gang wars and other violent conflicts and to

- 24 - facilitate better control of illegal guns.

Community activism in the context of improved relations with the police could play an important role in discouraging illegal gun possession. Some individuals who live in the embattled communities of inner-city Kingston acquire guns for the “defense” of self and community. This is considered justifiable. In a spirit of community solidarity, Jamaicans abroad who may not be supportive of ordinary criminality may feel no moral discomfort in assisting the efforts to acquire guns for these purposes. In the absence of inter-community wars, active community efforts to discourage these practices as part of the process of ensuring an enduring peace, would isolate gun possession and trafficking as ordinary criminality thereby making such activity more vulnerable to law enforcement.

The community dons and other leaders have shown that it is possible to have more effective crime control at the community level even without increased employment opportunities. But much of this is not sustainable without some developmental efforts and social interventions that are specifically geared to crime prevention. There are some 140 NGOs in the communities of Kingston doing various good things such as running homework centers for teenagers, providing sanctuaries for women victims of domestic violence, mediation and so forth. All of this is designed to respond to various needs of the citizens. But there is very little deliberate crime prevention.

- 25 - 8. Order in Public Spaces

For the community initiatives to work, they need to have a supportive national environment. If an attempt is to be made to consolidate the peace process and ensure effective crime control in the urban communities, then such a project could be extended somewhat by simultaneously trying to establish order in some of the major public places in the cities and main towns. The state of the main public spaces (that is, the points at which the commuter traffic converge and the main commercial and administrative centers) sets the standards for what is regarded as tolerable behaviour and tend to have a great impact on the psychology of the people. If there is considerable disorder in these public spaces, then it gives an impression of failure, engenders feelings of hopelessness regarding the fight against disorder and a lack of confidence in the police and the capacity of the state. The converse may also be true. Restoring order in these very public places may send positive signals, restore hope and serve to mobilize the energies of people for the larger struggle with the crime problem. For example, the main centers could be cleaned up, beautified, then saturated at given times with police officers and appropriate citizens auxiliaries and voluntary organizations such as the Cadet Corps, Boy Scouts and Girl Guides to ensure that people behave in a more orderly fashion, that they line up to take the buses, that street vendors have regard for other users of the streets and so forth. Such an approach would seek to rely not just on formal law enforcement and police power, but also on various informal forms of social sanctions and persuasion. This point can hardly be overemphasized. To return to the example of attempting to correct the disorder in the use of the public transportation system, much of this disorder is engendered by the scarcity of seats and unreliability of the busses. Coercing people to behave in an orderly fashion when confronted with such a disorderly service could easily lead to abuses and the excessive use of force and violence by inexperienced control agents. The objective of course is to get people to conform to law-abiding behaviour, not to further overcrowd the jails, and such efforts are only sustainable to the extent that they are designed to facilitate the rapid internalization of such conformity.

A general principle that could prove helpful here an in other aspects of crime control is the principle of boundary setting. Given the existing social conditions, unlike with the zero tolerance

- 26 - approach, the objective should not be to completely solve the problem of disorder or rather to solve it by formal law enforcement but rather to ameliorate the problem and to try accomplish this by incorporating those who are now part of the problem – as control agents for the new changes. For example, street vendors could be asked to meet specified standards and to observe agreed rules as a condition for continuing to do business on the streets. They could be required to use carts that meet certain specifications of size and appearance, to clear the streets after a specified time of day, to provide garbage bins for their customers and so forth. They could be involved in the development of these rules and made to have an interest in their enforcement. This would not solve the problems associated with street vending but it would improve the existing situation. The point here is the setting of reasonable boundaries that can be enforced in a consistent and sustainable manner. For many decades, indeed before Independence, the police have been trying to solve this problem in an all or nothing manner – by periodic sweeps which at time succeed in removing the vendors form the streets, but only temporarily. In short order the streets are again taken over by the vendors in greater numbers as the measures of the police are unsustainable.

This principle of setting “enforcable” boundaries may be extended in different ways to the control of violence and criminality. In this regard, the present codes that are operative among professional robbers in the tourist resort of Montego Bay are instructive. There, robbers who prey on tourists tend to avoid using guns and doing bodily harm to their tourist victims. The pay off for them is less pressure from the police. This is not the outcome of an explicit compact with the police. There could have been no such thing. But it is still the outcome a police criminal interaction and the vigorous patrolling of this (no gun) boundary by the police – which forced the criminals to reflect on the patterns of police behaviour. Conceivably this code is passed on in the socialization of new tourist robbers.

- 27 - 9. Implementation Strategies

Experience suggests that having some ideas or even a clear strategy and plan (Jamaica has had policing plans, the National Five Year Plans, an Industrial Policy and so forth) are not enough. Any crime control strategy must include how to get the responsible structures to adequately respond to the challenges. With regard to the process of implementation the following ideas are recommended:

• Give the people in the inner-city communities an incentive to engage in crime control. Presently they have a big disincentive to participate as such action within the present framework usually involves risking their lives. For example, on some of the public phones in the inner-city areas are warning notes reminding people of the dangers of making reports on criminal activity to the police. Such disincentives may be counteracted by rewarding any successful efforts in reducing the crime rate with direct economic benefits to the communities in the form of developmental investments. This may be considered a peace dividend.

• A step by step approach - seeking to progress on a community by community basis, and within the communities, organizing the different units of social space (schools, community centers and so forth) in a logically ordered sequence to ensure mutual reinforcement. Such an approach would allow for projects to proceed a pace with the accumulation of knowledge and consequently with increasing effectiveness and reduced waste of resources. Small successes may also have a contagion effect thereby facilitating the mobilization of other communities and towns.

• Inter-agency and inter-ministerial coordination. This would allow for the more effective use of the scarce resources at the disposal of state and society and improved impact on the problem as new synergies develop. It however presents the difficult problem of potential bureaucratic turf wars over domains of authority.

- 28 - 10. Conclusion

The recent experiences with the peace process suggest that Jamaican society can be successfully mobilized to deal with the problem of violent crime – if it is prepared to be creative and to move away from the failed routines and toward new directions that may prove more fruitful. It is now known that social programmes that are not specifically designed for crime prevention are unlikely to yield any significant returns in terms of reduced crime. The available resources are too limited and urban crime has become too complex for this diffused approach to work. Traditional law enforcement methods have similarly proved to be ineffective. The criminal justice system needs to be reformed and modernized (this ought to be an ongoing project that will take many years), but more effective crime prevention and control requires an approach that is comprehensive and community focused with heavy investments in deliberate and targeted crime prevention. The general idea that has been argued here is that law enforcement and crime control should be based on a coordination of the informal social power of the community with formal state police power. Indeed the direction of the changes and type of violence control strategies that may prove most successful are already clearly discernable from the recent experiences with the peace process and the initiatives (with all their imperfections) of the people in the Kingston inner-city communities that are most affected by the problem. Wise policy makers need only grasp this passing window of opportunity. The approach suggested here is focused on what can be done immediately given the present limitations on the reform process discussed above. These are suggestions that would not solve the problem of violent crime, but would perhaps make it more manageable and help to return Jamaica from the proverbial brink of lawlessness, to being simply a country with a serious crime problem. Further reductions in violent crime would require more fundamental changes – beyond a reform of the criminal justice system and the consolidation of the peace building and conflict management processes, to include a greater societal commitment to social justice. However, the immediate measures must be developed with a view to the long term, and should therefore be guided by a democratic approach to the problem, respect for the rule of law, greater citizen participation and more direct community based systems of accountability and so forth. Then at least the direction of the crime control efforts would have been right and consensus building facilitated.

- 29 - 11. ENDNOTES

1 See An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation by Jeremy Bentham in Jacoby, J. ed. 1994. Classics of Criminology. Prospect Heights, Ill: Waveland Press.

2 see The Fear of Crime in a Reputedly Violent Environment that is included in this volume.

3 From data provided by the Statistics Unit of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

4 From official statistics supplied by The Royal Barbados Police Force and the Statistics Unit of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

5 From data provided by the Statistics Unit of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

6 see Comparative data are presented in Making Dopies: Homicides in Jamaica by Anthony Harriott. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the ACJS, New Orleans March 2000.

7 From data provided by the Statistics Unit of the JCF.

8 There are no references to Zimbardo’s work in the article by Wilson and Kelling. But it was published two years before the Broken Windows article. It is of course possible that the authors of Broken Windows were unaware of Zimbardo’s work , but it is nevertheless worthwhile making the association at the level of ideas with Zimbardo’s work.

9 For a discussion of garrisons see Class, State and Democracy by Carl Stone and the Report of the Commission on Political Tribalism.

10 This ranking is based on data from the Annual Report of the INTERPOL for 1998.**

11 The Statistics Unit. Jamaica Constabulary Force.

12 This is not to suggest that mobilizations to improve the working conditions of police officers are not just and worthy of support.

13 For a discussion of this see the Report of the National Commission on Crime.

14 From data provided by the Statistics Unit JCF

15 ibid.

16 ibid

17 ibid

- 30 - 12. REFERENCES

Bentham, J. An Introduction the Principles of Morals and Legislation. In Jacoby, J. ed 1994. Classics of Criminology. Prospect Heights, Ill: Waveland Press.

Bratton, W. with Knobler, P. 1998. Turnaround: How America’s Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic. New York: Random House.

Harriott, A. 1998. The Fear of Crime in a Reputedly Violent Environment. Paper Presented at the International Conference on Crime and Criminal Justice in the Caribbean. Barbados. 1998.

------1997*. Reforming Ex-colonial Constabularies: The Case of the Jamaica Constabulary Force. forthcoming. The Press University of The West Indies. Kingston.

Kelling, G. and C. Colles. 1996. Fixing Broken Windows. Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in our Communities. New York: The Free Press.

Silverman. E. 1999. The NYPD Battles Crime: Innovative Strategies in Policing. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Stone, C. 1986. Class, State and Democracy in Jamaica. New York: Praeger.

Wilson, J and Kelling, G. 1982. Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety. In G Cole ed. 1988. Criminal Justice: Law and Politics. Pacific Grove, CA: brooks/Cole.

Wolfe, L. et. al. 1993. Report of the National Task Force on Crime Kingston: GOJ.

Zimbardo, P. 1969. The Human Choice: Individuation, Reason, and Order versus Deindividuation, Impulse and Chaos. In W.J.Arnold and D.L. Levine eds. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Lincoln, Neb: University of Nebraska Press.

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