Murder has been part of our culture from the mid-1970s, yet there is a unique mentality within Jamaica regarding the type of emotion we level at the group that perpetuates the ultimate crime — at one of the highest rates in the world — on often the most vulnerable in our society.

Proof of this is the existence of three very competent human rights organisations and about five different Government bodies that seem to exist strictly for the purpose of ensuring that the rights of these killers are slavishly protected.

I therefore thought it would be interesting to map this peculiar phenomenon to demonstrate how we got here.

Murder and murderers were treated with the type of condemnation expected of society in the 1950s and ’60s. Although “Whoppi King” was famous, nobody really cared about his human rights. In fact, killers were pretty much considered as being common criminals and deserving of the then-functioning hangman’s apparatus.

In the ’70s, change had begun with the class divide ushered in by the policies and propaganda machinery of the People’s National Party, and many of these gunmen became viewed as revolutionaries in the undeclared war against classism and social inequality.

Well, for every action there is an equal or opposite reaction, and in this case it was the anti-communist warriors that wore the title of Jamaica Labour Party gunmen.

Both the revolutionary and the anti-communist, boldly supported by each side of the ‘cold war’, became quite competent in killing, which came to a bloody peak in 1980 with over 800 murders recorded nationally.

It may be fitting to note that the famous ‘One Love Concert’ at National Heroes’ Park in 1978 had on stage famous gunmen who were not known for their powers of negotiation, and they stood with our political leaders.

The ’80s were far more sensible, and public acceptance of killer heroes waned until a fateful day when a shoot-out between police and gunmen at Nuttall Hospital in 1993 introduced the condemnation by uptown of the police — and a need to protect inner-city killers was born.

This gave birth to one of Jamaica’s most prominent human rights activists and the beginning of a new commitment to the cause.

With uptown backing a cause comes money, and with money comes marketing. What followed was a marketing programme that painted fallen gunmen, most of whom were gang members and killers, as victims of State excesses.

Marketing is a powerful mechanism. There is a reason why we call all vacuum cleaners Hoover and all forms of laminate Formica. It is marketing that determines how you identify products, places, events or occurrences.

The human rights organisations’ marketing programme was able to paint every man killed in shoot-outs with the police as a victim.

Let me give you an example: When you think of the Braeton Seven, which is the most marketed event in the history of police fatal shooting — dwarfing even the Green Bay affair — what do you see?

Would it surprise you that one of this seven was charged for illegal possession of a firearm prior to the incident? Would it also surprise you that one was positively identified as being the gunman who killed two people at the Above Rocks Police Station and wounded a third?

The reality is that this information came out in the Braeton inquest and even in the press, but it was never marketed.

This is important because it shows the power of marketing and the power of an organisation that decides to propagate a particular agenda.

This killer/victim phenomenon is replicated nowhere else in the world.

I admit there is some acceptance of criminal behaviour exhibited by criminals who lose their lives in the United States at the hands of law enforcement, but I don’t really see killers being treated as victims.

I also admit that not every gunman who is killed in an engagement with the police is necessarily a killer. However, even if he is wanted for multiple homicides he is marketed as a victim.

This dictates how we got here. I think if we are to develop from here, marketing is also needed. It is time that we not only hear that a man has fallen in a conflict with the police; we need his resume. Let us see what gang he is with, what murder he is suspected of being involved in, how many times detained and charged, and convictions, etc.

At least there would be counter propaganda and maybe, just maybe, killers could be villains and the vulnerable could be the victims once again.

— Jason McKay is a criminologist