PNP wants to resurrect the failed dead
When the baby grows, the crying changes.
— Tonga proverb, Zambia
Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” That reality seems to have escaped many at 89 Old Hope Road, including Dr Peter Phillips, leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, who continually regurgitates a crime-fighting approach which has succeeded only in failure.
Phillips’s apparent fixation with the resurrecting of failed police squads should concern all well-thinking Jamaicans, but in particular the thousands who do not live in gated communities, or who cannot afford to hire the services of private security companies or have licensed firearms and/or ferocious guard dogs.
After nearly four years in the political wilderness, People’s National Party (PNP) should be teeming with fresh, new ideas to ignite and excite the populace. Instead, Norman Manley’s party bombards us with relics. The days of Nyerere Farms and micro dams-type thinking belong to the past.
Recall this? ‘PNP to focus on crime solutions on final day of 3-day retreat’. ( Jamaica Observer, January 21, 2018)
At a press conference on January 23, 2018 the PNP announced to the country that it was actively seeking to resuscitate special police squads. The calcified bones of these squads seem to greatly intrigue the PNP. Surely they must know that special police squads have been a miserable failure in Jamaica.
Are the top brass of the PNP aware that in 1962 the murder rate in Jamaica was 3.9 per 100,000 — one of the lowest in the world? Forty-three years later, in 2005, our murder rate was 64 per 100,000 — one of the highest in the world. In 2017, Jamaica’s homicide rate was 56 per 100,000; in 2018, the homicide rate dropped to 47 per 100,000, but remains three times higher than the average for Latin America and the Caribbean.
The PNP says if it were to win the next general election it would summon the special police squads which are defunct. Whilst they prepare to raise the dead, they simultaneously need to explain why major crimes, in particular murders, have continued to skyrocket despite numerous special squads.
This bit of history might help the PNP to understand that the resurrection of special police squads is not the silver bullet to crime as many among its ranks seem to believe.
In 1976 the Echo Squad was activated. Among other things it was tasked with reducing murders. These murder figures do not suggest that the Echo Squad achieved that objective.
1976 – 367
1977 – 409
1978 – 381
1979 – 351
In 1980 the Ranger Squad was set into operation. Like the Echo Squad, it succeeded in liquidating a few apex predators, but very little else.
The Eradication Squad came after and, like its predecessors, Echo and Ranger, it eliminated some vicious murderers from our midst.
The vacuum, as in other instances, was, however, quickly filled by criminal affiliates who were only too eager to make a ‘name’ for themselves.
In 1986 the Area Four Task Force came and disappeared nearly as fast as it happened on the scene. It achieved results similar to its forerunners.
In 1992 there was the much-talked-about Operations Ardent. It carved out a place in pop culture, but did not make a major dent in major crimes, and murders in particular.
In 1993 the authorities set up the Special Anti-Crime Task Force. It died a bamboo-fire death.
In 1995 there was Operation Crest.
Operation Dovetail was developed in 1997. Some folks say, it was neither fish nor fowl.
The Organised Crime Unit surfaced in 1998.
In 1999 there was Operation Intrepid, which some folks jokingly nicknamed Insipid.
The Crime Management Unit, most famously associated with retired Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams, developed a big street reputation up to 2002. It too fizzed out and died.
Still, many other special squads came and went.
These special police squads have not succeeded in any sustained reduction in our long-standing epidemic of major crimes, in particular murders. They all lacked longevity and the resources to ensure their success.
That is a major difference between the use of states of emergency (SOEs) and zones of special operations (ZOSOs).
The Andrew Holness Administration, based on public information, has committed unprecedented human and physical resources to these enhanced security measures. And it has indicated that it is committed for the long haul. Why then would the PNP want to resurrect failed squads?
I believe, in large part, it is because 89 Old Hope Road suffers from a noticeable lack of talent, and this has translated into a famine of new and fresh ideas.
Consider this: Note that most of these special police squads were assembled and deployed during the near 12-year stint (1989 to 2001) of K D Knight as minister of national security. What was the result? Headline: ‘Jamaica struggling to cut its alarming murder rate — New head of national security faces a raging crime wave’. ( Miami Herald, October 31, 2001)
The Miami Herald news item stated that Knight expressed regret that the country’s crime rate had not declined during his tenure. He made similar comments to Loop Jamaica reported in an article titled ‘I had regrets about the murders, says former Security Minister Knight’, published on May 4, 2018.
Knight was booted from the security portfolio after years of severe pummelling by the public. He was replaced by Dr Peter Phillips, who I believe was an even bigger failure.
“In 2002 the murder rate moved to 40 per 100,000 and by 2005 it had risen to 64 per 100,000 population, placing Jamaica among nations with the highest murder rates in the world.” (Jamaica Constabulary Force: Police Crime Statistics)
On Phillips’s watch, murders peaked at 1,674 in 2005. (JCF statistics)
A common denominator of all these squads was that they were all knee-jerk reactions to massive increases in serious crime, in particular murder. They were rapidly assembled, dispatched, and then more often than not rapidly disassembled. These ad hoc squads, by virtue of their modus operandi, also deepened distrust, especially among the youth, in the security forces, in particular the police.
In the midst of these realities the ‘informa-fi-dead’ culture was effectively placed on steroids. This approach to dealing with upsurges in heinous crimes has not worked over decades of trial and error and undisputed failures of special police squads.
Now in 2020, Fitz Jackson, Opposition spokesman on national security, tells us that “best practices of the past include the use of special teams”. ( Jamaica Observer, January 28, 2020)
Albert Einstein said doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity. The PNP does not seem to understand this axiom.
But there is something else about these police special squads which we should remember not to forget.
Recall the Suppression of Crime Act?
In 1974, the then Michael Manley Administration instituted the Suppression of Crime Act. It turned out to be a glorious misnomer. Crime, in particular murders, spiralled under the Suppression of Crime Act. It gave the police enormous powers to stop, search, and detain citizens. The trampling of human rights during the application of the 20-year Suppression of Crime Act was unprecedented. There were hundreds of newspaper accounts in which the constitutional rights of ordinary citizens were abused with impunity. The sordid Suppression of Crime Act was an unremitting sower of generational enmity and distrust between the police and poor Jamaicans in particular.
Last Sunday The Gleaner reported online that general secretary of the PNP Julian Robinson criticised the declaration of a state of public emergency in East Kingston. According to the Old Lady of North Street, Robinson said, the SOE “is motivated by a need to detain people”. The irony here rings loud. But even louder was the irony of this banner headline: ‘PNP vows to protect rights of Jamaicans detained under SOE’. ( Jamaica Observer, January 26, 2020) The news item said, among other things: “Speaking to reporters a short while ago in Montego Bay, where the PNP National Executive Council (NEC) meeting is in progress, Robinson said the party would be ensuring that the rights of citizens are respected during the enhanced security measure.” The PNP’s record of protecting the rights of citizens is spotty at best. I have provided incontrovertible evidence in previous articles to substantiate this conclusion.
The fact is we only began to witness a seismic positive shift in the slaughter of Jamaicans by the police in particular when former Prime Minister Bruce Golding created the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM). Last week the country was told that, in 2019, Jamaica recorded the lowest number of fatal shootings by the security forces in 20 years. That is real change. Golding deserves accolades here.
INDECOM Commissioner Terrence Williams told the media last week that 86 citizens had been killed by the security forces in 2019. This is real change.
Recall the years when, on average, 150 Jamaicans were killed by the security forces?
While Dr Phillips, Jackson, and Robinson speak out of both sides of their mouths with regard to their support for the SOEs, snapshots of interviews with citizens who live in several communities in East Kingston reveal a reality of certainty.
On Nationwide News Network, last Monday, citizens said the arrival of the security forces was their Christmas. Some said shops which had been shuttered for many weeks were now open. Others said they wished the security forces were going to be among them for the long haul.
Too many of us are too often oblivious of the realities in which some of our fellow citizens are literally held hostage by criminals. That is just reality.
Unlike the SOEs, from which the PNP voted to withdraw its support from just before Christmas in December 2018, the Suppression of Crime Act and the genesis of the Gun Court were tools instituted to first and foremost protect the life and property of the privileged.
An article from the Sunday Observer of February 17, 2013 is especially insightful in elucidating why the Manley Administration formed the Gun Court. Rapidly distancing ourselves from agencies and agents which have damaged the relationship between the citizenry and the State, in particular the security forces, should be a top priority of a Government-in-waiting. This announcement by Dr Phillips last week says his party is on the opposite trajectory. Headline: ‘PNP to resurrect Operation Kingfish, says Phillips’. ( The Gleaner, January 27, 2020) The story said, among other things: “People’s National Party (PNP) President Dr Peter Phillips has vowed that the next Government formed by his party will resurrect the now-defunct Operation Kingfish as part of the arsenal to crack down on criminals.
“Speaking with The Gleaner at the end of his party’s National Executive Council meeting at Montego Bay Community College, on Sunday, the PNP president argued that the original mandates of Operation Kingfish and the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA) should be reimplemented – that is, going after significant actors in organised crime – suggesting that the latter unit had veered off message.
“ ‘We would revisit operations like Operation Kingfish, and the original [formation of] MOCA, which went out to identify the kingfishes of criminality, the leading proponents of violence, and to bring them to book, to prepare cases against them so we can take them out of commission, and a host of other things as well,’ he said.
“Phillips made the revelation in response to the announcement of a new state of emergency in the Kingston East Police Division on Sunday.”
Dr Phillips seems fixated with returning to the past. I believe this is another utterance which shows that Dr Phillips is prone to moments of unnecessary hyperbole. He would do well to dismount this antiquated rhetoric horse and exchange it for one of practical impact.
The trail of failure which haunts special police squads proves that they should stay where they are buried, Dr Phillips. While Phillips is anxious to find niches to score political points and facilitate legacy creation, he would do well to walk wide of the graveyards of dead police squads. These are very infertile grounds.
Garfield Higgins is an educator and journalist. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.