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13th
Feburary 2010
Fighting
Crime
Are we? Really?
 Seven
young St. Lucians have been killed for the year
so far – by guns, by knives, by masked
men. (The first 5 were killed in January alone.
And the number was still 7 at the time I started
writing this article Friday.) And the year was
only 6 weeks old. Understandably, crime has
become the national obsession of the moment.
The police seem unable to catch the major criminals
in the drug and gun trades. Or to keep up with
the murders between the gangs in the ghettoes
and on the streets. The Home Affairs and National
Security Minister sounds like he’s run
out of ideas for solutions. The government seems
powerless and (frighteningly) unable to take
a hold of the escalating crime rate, far less
to bring it under control. And people are getting
more and more scared, by the day. And the judiciary
is (mostly unfairly) being accused of not doing
enough to jail and hang the gun-toting criminals
and killers.
This is no exaggeration. People are being killed
for nothing these days – for a silver
chain or for having tried to steal something
else. A woman was shot on a motorcycle while
riding behind the person the gunman wanted to
kill. One girl killed another -- friends say,
over a man – or a boy. It’s not
about armed robberies or police shootouts anymore.
Or hold-ups of armed security vehicles carrying
cash. These days it’s about drive-by shootings.
And executions by masked murderers -- on street
corners or in the middle of the road. It’s
simply young people using guns and knives to
settle their differences – as if they
were the best instruments to settle conflicts.
As if the best conflict resolution is to wipe
out the other guy. Or the other g’yal.
And now we’re told we’ve been having
kidnappings as well.
The situation is indeed frightening. Just the
other day it was publicly stated that a local
security firm had reported encountering a well-known
policeman on armed duty at the location of a
crime. The security people insist, from their
observations and monitoring, that the policeman
was protecting the thieves at work inside the
building. The security company had been attracted
to the scene of the crime by an alarm inside
the building. The company reported the matter
to the police. Nothing heard since...
The Police Commissioner says tackling the drugs
trade is key to the fight against the criminality
we face. He says the main persons behind the
gun crimes are sustained by the drugs trade.
He says, “All of those persons who are
associated with the gang culture in this place,
they have no visible means of employment, (but)
they have vehicles, they have cars, motorcycles;
they are sporting jewelry; and they have no
visible means of employment. So what you think
is sustaining them? It’s the drugs. And
we need to deal with that...” And he added,
“I know this is not a very popular subject
among some of our leaders, but it needs to be
said… We need to deal with the drugs issue.
The guns are associated with the whole drug
issue. All of this undermining of authority,
money laundering, etc, is creating a problem
for us. All the corrupting of public officials
– it’s about the drugs. We have
to deal with the drugs if we want to deal with
crime.” The commissioner knows. But what
have his men been able to do? By the Government’s
account, not much. If anything…
The Government has given the police five more
vehicles and told them to decrease crime by
50% in 2010. And to submit plans on how it intends
to make that happen. In the meantime, the Home
Affairs and National Security Minister says
we need better street lights, CCTV in public
areas, demolition of abandoned buildings used
by criminals, enforcing of the liquor laws,
regulating noise in public and ensuring public
dances end by 2.00am. And the Marine Police
will get two more boats. And laws will be reviewed.
And more of the branches of the state will work
together – like the Customs and Police.
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The Police have
been begging for new tools and better laws
to ease their job. They are promised ‘tasers’,
but not yet; they are promised breathalyzers,
but the traffic laws have to be changed first.
They were promised a witness protection program
for informers, but the Ministry of Justice
isn’t ready yet. A legal draftsman has
now been transferred from the Attorney General’s
Office to the Ministry of Justice to fast-track
the legal police work, but while both ministries
are under the same minister, he is not responsible
for the Police. And the minister’s CCTV
cameras will have to wait for the Prime Minister’s
next Budget. But before they can be located
in public places, the streets would have to
be better lighted by Lucelec – enough
to allow for persons captured on camera to
be seen and identified clearly.
The latest criticism (if we can call it that)
of the Police (and, by extension, the Home
Affairs Minister) came straight from home.
Foreign Affairs Minister Rufus Bousquet says
everyone else seems to know who the criminals
are and where to get them -- except the police.
And that those getting killed have mostly
been involved in one crime or another. So,
he says, the police have to take the blame
-- until their job is done and crime is reduced.
We seem to be spinning this crime top in mud,
passing the buck and leaving the job to the
police and the government. Some of the government’s
main advisors tell us that if it can’t
get results in the big crimes, it should get
results on the smaller ones, because, after
all, “crime is crime”. They tell
the government that most of the persons committing
crimes today are young persons high on drugs
and alcohol; that students are going to school
drunk; that persons selling liquor from coolers
by the roadsides need to be given the shock
treatment that really should be applied to
the tough guys behind the guns and knives.
But while we play games and shift blame, crime
is getting worse. Jamaica’s former Home
Affairs Minister Dr Peter Philips warns that
today’s criminals have more money and
means than the law can keep up with. And he
echoes our Police Commissioner to say the
drugs underworld is taking over everything
they need to get ahead -- including political
parties. And now they are aiming for governments.
Yet we hear nothing about White Collar crime.
The National Security Minister says we must
use “available technology” to
fight crime, but the Forensic Lab remains
just a building. And our adherence to ancient
laws and ways of thinking don’t cater
for hi-tech approaches to crime-busting.
We’re still playing the numbers game
– counting how many people have been
killed over what period. But if we thought
crime was simply a matter of statistical comparison,
we’ve been proven wrong. We’ve
learned that no government can control crime.
And both this government and the last one
have found that it’s not enough even
to throw money alone into the crime fight.
In addition to dollars, it also needs guts.
And balls.
It’s not good enough for the Home Affairs
and National Security Minister to tell us
that if someone is out to kill any of us he
can’t stop it. We know that. Nor can
the police. But what people want to know is
that if something happens to them, the least
they can count on is the police and the courts
to do something about it. But that’s
not happening. People are accusing the police
of looking the other way. And the lawyers,
magistrates and judges are being accused of
allowing bail for killers and letting murderers
walk. And they are insisting that until the
Government hangs the criminals on death row,
killers outside will never expect that their
necks can be broken after they’re caught.
If they’re caught…
We are spinning top in mud while the criminals
plan their next moves, their next deals and
the next big hit. The big bad boys are not
the students experimenting with alcohol or
the vendors and their coolers by the roadside.
We know who they are, but we continue to look
the other way -- and blame the police for
doing the same.
Fighting crime is not police business alone.
Or the courts. Or the lawyers, magistrates
and judges. It’s our business. It’s
all-of-us business. Crime is everywhere, all
the time. It’s just around the corner.
And it could be knocking at your door soon.
(Gosh! I just hope no one was killed while
I was writing this article…)
Discuss
Story
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