ANTHROPOLOGIST and head of Fathers Incorporated, Dr Herbert Gayle, believes that Jamaica can stop gang violence by implementing a fully funded compulsory education programme for boys and young men.

"The easiest way to stop a feud is to remove one of the parties operating in the game," he said. "Since in a small geography you cannot remove one of the players, you can deny the teams of players. This means fully funded compulsory education for young men."

Guns similar to these are often the choice of weapons for gang members.

His suggestion comes at a time when the island is grappling with an estimated 150 gangs - some 80 of which are currently active - operating primarily out of urban centres, and more notably out of Kingston and St Andrew, Montego Bay and Clarendon.

Among the crimes in which they are primarily involved are extortion and drugs, in addition to general antisocial behaviour, according to director of communications for the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), Karl Angell.

He added that the police were working to ensure gangs were disbanded.

"We just have to keep working on it. We know that the task ahead is not an easy one," said Angell.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Glenmore Hinds, head of the National Intelligence Bureau King Fish, attested to this. However, he said that the police were reaping some successes.

By extension, the last two years have seen them disrupting the operations of several other gangs, including Spanglers out of Matthew's Lane in Kingston and the Gideon Warriors out of Papine, Mud Town. The past 12 months have seen the police dismantling several drug syndicates, while a number of their members are currently before the courts. More recently, Tesha Miller - the alleged leader of the notorious Klansman criminal gang - was arrested.

"So, we have disrupted their activities and, to that extent, we have been successful. But some gangs have large membership and are not domiciled in one community. They have satellites in other communities," Hinds said. "The Klansman gang has satellites in other communities and so it makes dismantling those very difficult."

Given these realities, the ACP said he would support any effort that helped to make their work lighter.

"Anything that we can do to reduce the ready pool of recruits that the gang leaders have to pull from, I would support," Hinds said.
Gayle insists the police alone cannot eradicate gang activity - as evidenced by their level of success to date - since no sooner is one gang member arrested or killed, he is replaced by a fresh body. This, the anthropologist said, was so, given that gangs present not only a challenge to society but to other rival gangs hungry for turf and resources.

"Each time a group attacks another group in order to get a job on the construction site or to sell drugs or to collect extortion money, that group enters into a game with the group that lost," Gayle told the Sunday Observer. "The group that lost goes home and retools. It is assumed the next time that he will come bigger and better. This means better arsenal."

It is against this background that young men are needed to replenish the group whenever their numbers fall.
National Security Minister, Trevor MacMillan has himself noted the value of getting boys educated, as part of the move to deprive gangs of members.

"A lot of that (criminal activity) has to be traced back to the fact that most gang members are between 15 and 25 years of age and commit about 80 per cent of crimes in Jamaica and are uneducated or undereducated," he told the Sunday Observer recently. "One of the biggest problems facing us is to deal with those young men."

Social worker, Derrick Palmer, put his own stamp of approval on Gayle's suggestion for fully funded, compulsory education for boys and young men.

"I think it is important because it directly provides other ways for people to provide, and get people to think. People must question things. They will begin to ask: 'Is this group serving my needs?' and 'Is this the best way to earn?'" he noted.

But Palmer, a social worker since 1984, has cautioned that the education boys receive should be tailored to meet their needs.
"The education has to meet their needs, their wishes in order to keep them in school and to keep them interested. A man will cut a yard, but him feel much better if him use a brush cutter or a lawn mower rather than the cutlass," he told the Sunday Observer.

Meanwhile, Gayle said it would prove invaluable to put in place or otherwise strengthen social support services such as the Programme of Advancement through Health and Education (PATH).

"Central government does not have a welfare system. PATH is the only thing. In First World countries, this problem (a the violent crime rate) does not exist because there is a benefit office that comes straight from central government," Gayle said. "PATH is not enough as is. PATH will need to be expanded to the extent where it covers the bottom quintile or at least the 15 per cent that is below the established poverty line."

He added that an improved PATH made sense on several levels.

"PATH also makes sense because it presents central government as a giver, and therefore competes with the local givers (such as community dons). Also, legitimacy comes when you give. It is constructed on fulfilled expectation - including resources, and of course, justice," Gayle noted.

Hinds, meanwhile, underscored the value of social intervention programmes geared at enhancing the resources at people's disposal. This, he said, recognising that gangs in several instances are currently the benefactors for communities.
"A lot of the gangs are benefactors for communities and so communities have a difficulty distinguishing between good and evil, and not recognising that the gangs are robbing practically every other community and returning the spoils to their community," he said. "(And so) a large percentage of gangs exist because communities support them. The most powerful weapon at a gang's disposal is community support, whether wittingly or unwittingly. Until communities begin to see these gangs for what they are, it is going to make our task that much more difficult. That critical element that should be at our disposal is not there. And they will form a powerful coalition against criminals and gangs."

The Fathers Incorporated boss reinforced the point, explaining how gangs emerge.

"What do you think happens when there is extreme scarcity of resources and people are desperate and there is no effective central political authority, meaning no machinery to address conflict?" he asked. "A hostile environment is created, in which every man has to bond with someone else in order to survive. Every group you form does two things - it unifies and separates. It is the principle of othering."

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