HE’S young and of slim build with a natural hairdo and a bleached face. This is the image that some people have come to associate with the hardened criminal of today’s Jamaica.

At a time when the island is grappling with stemming the tide of murders and other violent crimes, particularly in areas such as St James, it is to this image that sociologist Dr Orville Taylor believes the authorities can look for insight into the criminal mind.

“There is something that is indeed changing with the way the typical criminal looks,” said Taylor. “I think that the stereotype or the archetype now of what the real violent offenders look like is something of a fellow who is not overly macho-looking. He is more of a metrosexual and is someone who is a little more conscious of the way he dresses. He bleaches out his skin.”

But more important than the look of the young criminal is what the image depicts: a youth without historical roots and who has a limited, if any, sense of community.

“I think typically (he) does not seem to have as much understanding or connection to anything regarding his history and I think that this is one of the significant things about him,” Taylor, a senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, told the Sunday Observer.

“I think that there is a direct correlation between young men not being connected to their sense of being, their sense of history and ultimately, therefore, their sense of worth and the sort of pathologies in which they will involve themselves,” the social researcher added.

Taylor pointed out that a similar thing may be seen if one should look at certain tribal peoples. Those who maintain tribal traditions, he said, do not typically engage in deviant behaviour, while those who do not maintain those traditions “have no anchor regarding their history”.

“That is pretty much what has happened to this generation,” he said.

Against this background, the sociologist said that while it would prove a slow process, it has become necessary to take steps to empower the youth of today with a sense of history and ultimately to facilitate his self-worth.

“It’s a slow process of perhaps shifting the curriculum in schools a little bit, but also presenting opportunities,” he said. “For me, it is not simply about addressing the crime phenomenon, which is really what is very problematic for us, but we have to engage ourselves in a slow process of cultural reversal. It is teaching young, black men where they are coming from and some of the significant things that black people did,” he said.

Psychologist Dr Sidney McGill agreed with Taylor that there was something to be learnt from an examination of the young criminal’s image today.

At the heart of that lesson, he said, was the issue of identity.

“A lot of these gunmen are more vulnerable than the average man because they are desperate to find role models, to find the kind of leadership that would be able to make them begin to feel that they are men,” he said.

“A lot of them, without the gun, feel a major deficiency when it comes to their manhood. And so this is certainly a very effective, easy way of seeming to have the power, the authority to have the things they want. It is a turnkey method of achieving their perception of manhood,” he added.

Against this background, McGill, who heads the Family and Counselling Centre of Jamaica in Ocho Rios, said it was crucial that society arrive at a consensus on what the real issues are and begin to attend to them.

“I think that what is required is, first, to start working with men who have a cause and when I say cause I am referring to a philosophy of life that takes community into consideration,” he said.

“We have to help men of all ages to deal with their wounds. Those wounds have to do with an incompetent or absent father. That is the essential thing.

“We need to look at how men project their image to show that their image is intact. Most of them opt for their sexism and their homophobia so that the other men who look at them will say ‘well, this is a man’,” added the psychologist who is also a clinical sexologist.

Taylor, meanwhile, endorsed National Security Minister Peter Phillips’ proposals last week to help fight crime on the island. Phillips announced Monday night that the Government was spending almost $1.3 billion to upgrade the police emergency response system, in addition to the implementation of a raft of other measures to curb crime in St James, where there has been an upsurge in violence since the start of the year.

“In the short term, you definitely are going to have to be increasing policing because in as much as a large percentage of the population is clamouring for a reinstatement of the death penalty. the likelihood is that people are not going to be caught while, but after they have committed their criminal acts. So clearly, better policing techniques are something that are sine qua non,” said Taylor.

He noted that what was important now, in so far as the minister’s statement was concerned, was the implementation of the strategies.

“I think that the minister is saying the sort of things that need to be said. The question is whether or not it is going to be done,” said Taylor.

He was quick to add, however, that a drawback in the minister’s presentation was his failure to account for recidivism (repeat offenders) and how that factors into the island’s crime statistics.

“The minister was a little short on the issue of repeat offenders,” said Taylor. “I think that is a large part of it. We need to understand that the crime statistics make more sense when you are able to adjust for the number of crimes, which are attributed to individuals. You might well find that of the 1,600 murders from last year or the 1,700 from the year before may be the result of 300 people. And if that is the case, then it means that the problem is not nearly as bad as we might think,” he said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) in charge of Intelligence Charles Scarlett agreed with Taylor that there was some benefit to be gained from an examination of the image. He noted that it was a growing tool used to formulate criminal profiles.

“By doing that, it puts us in a position to make more accurate assumptions and conclusions (about criminals),” said Scarlett. “I don’t know that it is an exact science. We look at lifestyles, physical features and behaviour to get a composite picture of the criminal.”

Scarlett, however, believes that the changing image of the criminal – as evidenced by the bleached complexion, for example – was also a tool employed by criminals to disguise their appearance.

“Invariably they use the bleach to disguise what they look like. Oftentimes, they begin to commit crimes looking a particular way, with long, unkempt hair, maybe a dark complexion and then after they become involved in crime, the hairstyle is changed to something different and the skin colour is changed. So I think it has more to do with an attempt to conceal identity more than anything else,” Scarlett said.

For him, a major part of the island’s failure to deal effectively with crime has to do with the society’s ambivalence towards law and order.

“I think the society has, for too long, been ambivalent about this whole issue of law and order,” said DCP Scarlett. “There is a notion that all we must seek to assert in this country is rights, rights, rights. But there is a disproportionate focus on responsibility, and to the extent that youngsters are oriented in a belief that the society and everyone else owes them a responsibility to lift themselves up.

“That gets expressed in anger. That gets expressed in a belief that to the extent that I did not achieve, someone else must be blamed. I am not sure that I can provide you with the kind of empirical evidence to support that. I am basing this view on my own policing experience over three decades,” Scarlett added.

McGill echoed the DCP’s sentiment on the issue, noting that young men increasingly appear to aspire – whatever their material circumstance – to become criminals.

“It appears that criminality has become ingrained in the culture and what has happened is that it has become desirable for a lot of young men who don’t see any easy opportunity or way out of making any type of progress,” he said. “A lot of them are able to read or may be semi-literate. They have seen the spoils of older gunmen and the power that they wield and not just over gang members but over everybody.”

Added McGill: “It is not uncommon (therefore) to hear of late adolescent and young adult males hoping to become gunmen, to have a career in criminality because of the rewards that are involved.”

Scarlett said, in the interim, that it was past time that society tackle its ambivalence towards law and order, beginning with those with the power to influence public opinion.

“As a society we do not encourage people to support the law. The same Jamaicans who go abroad and find it easy to accept and fall in line, routinely defy order here,” the DCP said. “(They) routinely break the law and seek to justify why they should break the law.”

He said that oftentimes, the people who shape opinions seek to excuse or legitimise people’s refusal to obey the law, citing all sorts of historical reasons why.

McGill, for his part, said society needed to look at the gangs and what they have come to mean to the young criminal.

“It is the gang that becomes a part of their identity. It seems to fill some deficiency – some self-esteem deficiency – so that it completes a major part of their identity as a person,” he said, while suggesting that their outward appearance was at times reflective of their association with gangs whose members may dress in like manner.

Scarlett also advanced the need for all to recognise that they have a role to play in the process of crime-fighting, which, he said, was not strictly the purview of the police.

“I support the notion that crime-fighting requires a multi-agency approach where the whole business of enforcement of law and order is supported by police tactics and good investigative work,” said Scarlett. “But alongside that must be the other agencies that seek to create and to deal with quality of life issues. These are issues to do with removal of garbage, water, roads and education and health.

“Once you have that kind of approach, I think that it can help to make a difference. As it is, oftentimes one gets the impression that the notion is pervasive in this country that the business of the enforcement of law is purely the prerogative of the police, and I don’t think that is possible,” he added.