Passion aside, desperate times call for desperate measures
A great many people believe passion is placed in opposition to reason. Still, whilst passion may not good policies make, it is instinctive, and, if expressed with reasonable restraint, could be at the service of reason — particularly if its expression is moulded within certain contexts.
It is within the framework of Jamaica’s burgeoning but very complex crime epidemic and murder statistics that we should place and begin to scrutinise the passionate outbursts of so many Jamaicans, even as we wrestle with daily reports of gruesome murders, abysmally low crime “clear-up” rates, and high incidence of recidivism.
The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has yet to release the official murder statistics for 2016, but according to the unofficial count, 1,350 people were murdered across the island over the past year — representing an 11 per cent increase over 2015. Yet, these numbers say nothing new about the obdurate nature of serious crimes or the frightening patterns of criminality in Jamaica.
To begin with, no one with a scintilla of awareness could ever muster the courage to deny the inconvenient truth about the unsustainable state of criminal activities in Jamaica, or even attempt to downplay the exigency for a multi-pronged approach and an effective balm to fix it.
Put bluntly, Jamaica is under siege. No old woman or old man, no one with a physical or mental disability, and hardly any child — boy or girl — is safe at home, or in certain public spaces. Our criminals, including some men of the cloth, are like wild animals! No mother is comfortable chit-chatting with friends in front of her gate after 7:00 pm in certain areas. No man is at ease playing dominoes or shooting the breeze with friends at bars in other sections of the island.
For years, we have been steadily degenerating into a backward, barbarous and benighted country. In spite of our own deterioration, we continue to thumb our noses at other places, like Haiti, as though Jamaica is morally or socially superior. And, to add insult to injury, we continue to behave as if our criminals possess hearts of gold. Yuh t’ink wi easy?
Murderers and criminal miscreants are neither cherubim nor seraphim. Therefore, we need to develop the guts to treat them like the monsters they truly are — period. While we are at it, we cannot allow political correctness to hinder our fight against crime. After all, political correctness might not be the medicine the doctor orders. We, the people, have to demand more of our political directorate, but also prepare to make sacrifices of our own. It is a well known fact: Our politicians go out of their way to politicise crime and violence and to articulate all sorts of bovine excrement, but never present ameliorative proposals.
Yet, as chilling as our perennial crime problem has been, we have not always accepted that the solutions require a hot mix of policies, investments, toughness, strategies, and tactics; some of which must be short-term in nature, ‘shock and awe’ in scope, immediate in impact, and require reasonable disruptions that may include short periods of suspension of fundamental rights and freedoms. We have to stop the intellectual masturbation, stop cursing the darkness, and learn instead to light candles to illuminate the nightfall of terror that engulfs us — a temporary suspension of some rights and freedoms is but a tiny price to pay.
Long time things bad…getting worse
There is no sense whatsoever in denying the severity of the national emergency our out-of-control crime situation has caused. Ours has been a national emergency since the mid-1970s, and no political administration has been resolute or consistent enough to grab the crime bull by its horns. Instead, we have seen implementation of a plethora of lame and uneven manoeuvres, years of lawyering, and other deliberative overtures, most of which yielded limited results, but were also grossly counter-intuitive and supportive of conditions that gave succour to growth in the twin problem of crime and violence.
Things are not pretty. The more passion we display in calling “a spade a spade” and in highlighting the troubling reality of crime, the better it would be for all of us. Passion can give rise to transformative movements, and Jamaica needs a national movement against crime, or else runaway criminal activities could suffocate us.
By way of a quick story, my mom left many years ago. Yet, she never fell in love with any of the countries to which she has travelled. Her trips to Jamaica have always been “big events”, and her anticipation for a great time with friends and family has never diminished in fervour, except lately.
For the first time that I can recall, my mom reported fear and uneasiness after spending time in Jamaica over the Christmas holidays. The source of her fear is understandable, given her age and level of self-awareness. Last Christmas, a close childhood friend of hers, a woman well into her late 70s, was attacked, robbed, and savagely raped in broad daylight while on her way from church. Luckily, the perpetrators, having satisfied themselves sexually and financially, spared her life.
There is everything scandalous about a 70-odd-year-old woman being raped and possibly left for dead by young men in their late 20s to early 30s. There is something more scandalous about the fear of reporting crimes like these out of fear of reprisal. Sad as it was, the poor woman did not report the crime because she does not trust the police enough and feared that the perpetrators would have knowledge of her report by the time she left the police station. Whether or not this rings true of all police officers in this rural district is debatable, but no one should underestimate the level of corruption that exists in the JCF.
The behaviour of these two brutes is being regarded as an ugly declaration of the community’s epitaph for good moral conduct and kindred spirit. Understandably, it remains a painful and shocking reminder for all who have ever lived or visited there. The fact that my mom is apprehensive about future visits, and continues to be devastated by her friend’s horrifying ordeal, must be disconcerting to all, given efforts to position Jamaica as a prime retirement destination.
We have to ‘talk the tings’
It is against the backdrop of the current spate of barbarity that we should conduct — if even passionately — the dialogue about crime in the public square. There was a good precursor to this last Sunday by one of the country’s eminent journalists. Veteran columnist Ian Boyne predicted, with amazing prescience, what the likely responses from “talk show hosts, well-spoken defence attorneys and other human rights fundamentalists” to his Sunday column of January 8, 2017, titled ‘Is Holness tough enough’ would be. He scored perfectly in his precognition of their schizophrenia on crime suppression.
The reaction from a certain class to any proposal to curtail crime is predictable, especially when the nexus between uptown criminal financiers and downtown perpetrators is threatened. The only exception is when their family members are victims of crime. The African saying puts it best: “An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned…”
Boyne’s column generated a torrent of responses, some of which were wide of the mark and, as is consistent with reckless haste, carelessly overlooked the saliencies in his doctrine on crime containment. Given Ian’s penchant for inquiry, it is quite probable that he drew from the writings of ancient Greek physician Hippocrates for inspiration in penning that no-holds-barred piece on crime. For, it was Hippocrates who declared, “For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to restriction, are most suitable…”
Clearly, Boyne anchored his passionate call and stout advocacy on the truism that “desperate times call for desperate measures”. His objective was not in furtherance of malice or insult towards human rights fundamentalists or defence lawyers, as some have set out to do in response. Instead, his grouse appeared to be with the dichotomous thinking that emanates from the chattering class, most of whom are oftentimes far removed from the reality of everyday life.
Put simply, they want the perfect cure for every sore imaginable, however long it takes, or how odiferous the stench that emanates from its stinky pus, or how unbearable the burden of pain being experienced. Boyne was not advocating trampling human rights or freedoms, suspending the rule of law in the classic sense, neither was he pushing for a ‘police State’. His thesis focused on answering the question: What can we do right this minute to stop the criminal bloodbath?
However, as real life experience teaches, perfection is an unattainable endeavour. I interpret Boyne’s doctrine to be saying, “While the grass is growing the horses are starving.” Therefore, since we have to depend on them to carry us across the river, then let us at least give them nourishment until we can we provide the bales of hay. Put another way, sometimes we have to patch a little part of the road, even as we attempt to build a bigger bridge; but those actions will inevitably produce some inconveniences.
Something has to give
In fact, the prologue to his tome laid bare his frustration — a frustration that most ordinary Jamaican folks feel and express unceasingly. For them, something drastic needs to happen and it needs to happen now. Boyne is absolutely right.
We can’t have our cake and eat it too. The point of the aphorism here is that sometimes we have to make choices between options we cannot reconcile. Here, Boyne’s doctrine is as straightforward as can be.
In adverse circumstances, actions that might have been rejected under other circumstances may become the best choice. Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with this approach, more so within the context of the “prevalence of evil spirits across Jamaica” — to paraphrase Prime Minister Andrew Holness. Call in the exorcists, Mr Prime Minister, the ghosts are aplenty and fear is widespread!
Too many of us want to go to heaven, but not a single one of us is willing to die. Something has to give, and that something cannot always wait until all parties agree, especially when people have innate aversions to simplicity or progress.
I have nothing against defence lawyers or economists, but you try putting them in a room with a view to reaching consensus on any simple matter, and watch what happens. They scarcely agree on anything, even when disagreement is unnecessary. In light of this reality, certain stop-gap measures can work. They depend, however, on the quality of the ideation that goes into calculating the circumference of the solutions.
Purposeful action
It is heartening to see the Ministry of National Security getting an increase in the first Supplementary Estimates of Expenditure for the 2016/2017 fiscal year of about $2.7 billion to defray the costs for communications equipment. The accretion should have gone instead towards strengthening investigative capacity and mobile capability of the police force.
While there is a case to be made for effective short-term (tactical) crime-fighting measures, including short periods where certain constitutional rights are abrogated, it would be intellectually dishonest of me to morph into becoming a crusader and proponent of Machiavellianism or the belief that “the end justifies the means”. For, whilst we can temporarily suspend certain constitutional rights and privileges for the greater good of our country, I do not subscribe to the notion that we should use bad or immoral methods as long as those methods accomplish something good by virtue of their use. Consequently, in addition to short-term measures, including curfews, cordons, unannounced stops, limited (parish) states of public emergency, and court-approved search warrants, long-term measures (and investments) such as the ones I will enumerate are vital as well.
An efficient, well-equipped and properly functioning police force (soon to be police service) is critical to engendering a safe and prosperous society. In our case, the recalibration and strengthening must reflect the fierce urgency of now in light of the recent spate of killings across the country. Any quick assessment of the capacity of the JCF to deliver on all fronts will show a police force that is severely diminished by internal politics, a lack of forensic services, inadequate training and equipment, corruption, and technological disconnection. There has been a chronic disconnect and a lack of coordination between numerous kinds of police units and intelligence-gathering apparatuses within the constabulary, all of which are major hurdles to collective strategising and effective crime fighting.
Criminals act on the belief that they will get away with the crimes they commit. Therefore, if the police force is not empowered to catch criminals, then no amount of legislation, social intervention or curtailment of constitutional rights would do. The JCF needs urgent upgrades and modernisation and, in some cases, replacement of existing police infrastructure. This should happen simultaneously with reforms of the criminal justice system and the stripping away of political involvement in police work. However, none of this will work without public consensus. The public has to accept that ‘one hand can’t clap’, and so, corruption begets corruption.
We have to stop the pussyfooting with crime. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Immediate actions are impatient of implementation. We should begin with upgrading and staffing the intelligence apparatus within the JCF and create a civilian-staffed Bureau of Investigation — even if it requires “importing” former FBI and Scotland Yard detectives and foreign investigators to staff it in the initial phase.
PS: A major contributor to crime in Jamaica is not just the absence of “tough policing” or the paucity of effective legislation; it is corruption inside and outside the police force. We must give citizens the confidence to report crime. We have to remove corrupt police officers. We cannot leave the fox to guard the henhouse, and we must conclude that prison deal with the British Government.
Burnscg@aol.com