THEY wash the blood-drenched clothes, hide the stolen loot, act as look-outs and decoys, transport arms and hold illegal assets in their names. But although they rarely pull the trigger themselves, women are as integral to crime and criminal networks as the men that commit the crimes.

With a disarming smile, a sexy pout of the lips or a provocative swing of the hips, many women slip through police cordons, leaving with the vital evidence for which the lawmen had swooped down on the area, crime-fighters acknowledge.

It is the men who make up the roster of the police most wanted list, but in reality, it is the support provided by their women that allows the men to continue their criminal activity, elude the police and rake in big bucks from illegal activity, say the lawmen.

“Any gang that operates without the services of a woman is no gang at all,” former head of the controversial Crime Management Unit, Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams, told the Sunday Observer.

According to Adams, Jamaican police are not trained to focus on women and most times they tend to slip through the dragnet of the law.

“The Jamaican police culture is not geared to focus on women and they go by unnoticed sometimes. Three women standing and talking do not look as suspicious as three men standing and talking,” Adams said. It is easier for a woman to be overlooked than for a man, and over the years, women increasingly have used this deficiency of the police system to their advantage.

One police constable who was shot and injured during a firefight between gunmen and police in West Kingston almost two years ago, told the Sunday Observer how a woman prevented him from possibly shooting one of the gunmen during the exchange.

“I was hit in the leg and fell,” the cop said. “After hitting the ground, I was able to line up one of the gunmen but before I could fire, a woman holding a baby stepped out in front of the man.”

As a further way of eluding the police, women have been known to “dress up as men” and pull the trigger, Adams added. One notable case of this was the late night ‘invasion’ of Park Lane off Red Hills Road in Kingston on New Year’s Eve 2001. That night, eyewitnesses claimed that a gun-toting gang of five or six terrorists, all disguised in the blue denim uniforms that police don on special operations, raided the community. It was later established that a woman was among the terrorists.

One man, Glenroy Maize, was killed — it is still unclear by which member of the gang — but several nights later, a retaliatory killing in adjoining 100 Lane claimed the lives of seven people, including three children.

According to figures released by the police, only 17 women were arrested on the capital charge of murder, while a mere 11 were arrested on shooting charges last year. This compares with 19 women arrested for murder and eight held for shootings in the year 2001.

A relatively insignificant 31 women were arrested for robbery and break-ins last year.

Most of the murders committed by women are crimes of passion or the result of abuse, said one police superintendent who asked not to be identified.

“Most times when we arrest a woman for murder, it’s either because she was suffering constant abuse from her man or because she was jealous of another woman. I am no psychological expert but from my experience in the force, women rarely kill for financial gain,” the officer said.

Criminal lawyer Peter Champagnie agreed. “It has been my experience that female offenders who plead guilty or are found guilty of violent offences like murder, most times it is a crime of passion,” he said.

One possible example cited is the high-profile case of Mary Lynch who is now serving a life sentence in the Fort Augusta penal facility for the murder of her husband, Leary Lynch, in May 1992. Forensic reports revealed that Lynch was chopped 25 times in his head. The body was allegedly dismembered and limbs hidden in different spots.

Last April, secretary Annette Livingston was sentenced to 60 years in prison for her role in the murder of prominent attorney, Shirley Playfair. Livingston did not actually murder Playfair but was sentenced for conspiring to kill her former boss.

If women generally do not kill for financial gain, many indulge in criminal activities for money, as in the case of drug mules. Women play a key role in the illegal drug trade. Last year, 128 women were held trying to smuggle illegal drugs abroad. So far this year, 59 women have been arrested on drug smuggling charges.

Many city store-owners have spent sleepless nights and millions of dollars on security trying to stop female shoplifters who skilfully conceal expensive goods under their dresses.

But dealing with criminal-minded females creates a dilemma for the police, since most women involved are accomplices who aid and abet the heinous crimes rather than commit them explicitly.

They rarely ever talk openly about their roles, but the Sunday Observer was able to speak with one such woman who benefited from the criminal activities of her former spouse who was cut down by police bullets after a high-speed chase in the capital. She recalled the life she lived with a notorious gunman and the father of her four sons.

The woman said that her man did not start out his life as a criminal but chose a life of crime because of peer pressure and the harsh survival rules of the inner-city.

“My man was a good boy, quiet and humble. But one day a man make the mistake and lick me with a bottle inna my head and buss it. Me never see him so. Him sharpen a cutlass back and front and laywait the man and chop him up bad,” she recounted.

That incident, the woman said, transformed her man into a violent beast. Soon, he acquired a gun and inevitably, started to rob. He began by robbing shops, bars and other business places at gunpoint and soon committed his first murder. The woman stared at the parched earth in her yard as she recounted the night her man came home with blood on his hands.

“Me hear him a vomit inna di yard. When him come in me see a wild look inna him eye. Mi ask him what happen and him just look pan me funny. Mi see him go inna him pocket and take out a bundle a money and mi stop question him. The next day him friend dem tell mi say him cold,” the woman recalled. She then explained that her man had killed a business owner because he resisted his attempts to get a briefcase of money the man was carrying.

Spending the money was never a problem for her, said the woman who was adorned in jewellery. She feels no remorse at having known that people had been killed in order for her and her children to eat food and wear clothes.

“After all, nuff a dem rich boy deh step pan people fi have whe dem have. Mi couldn’t tink ’bout dat when the pickney dem hungry, and next ting mi go gwaan like mi nuh want the money and him go say mi a plan fi tun informer and kill me,” the woman argued.

That reality was not lost on Champagnie who told the Sunday Observer that there are cases in which the women become involved under duress or out of fear that they will be the victim.

However, he was clear that some women assist their criminal spouses out of loyalty. “Women who are accomplices to gunmen often see it is as aiding their spouse in the execution of his work,” he explained. “They do it out of love and loyalty.”

Other women, though, have been forced against their will into relationships with bad men after being raped or intimidated by them. Inner-city communities have their own rules of survival and the man who wields the most power is the man who uses his gun with impunity. Many girls are summoned by these bad men who rape them and sometimes shack up with the young females.

One such woman tells her story. At the tender age of 15, she was held and raped on her way from school by a man known to all and sundry in the community. It was an open secret that he had raped her but no one, including her parents, could report the matter to the police. According to the victim, the man seemed to take a liking to her and sent a message to her mother that she should hand over her daughter… or else. Faced with death, they complied.

“Every day mi pray say police kill him or him friend dem. Him woulda kill me wid beaten. Him have mi like a sex slave and when him go do him evil works, a mi him a come home to,” she said as tears streamed down her cheek. “When me hear say him dead nobody nuh glad like me.”