I wrote an article titled ‘The gang family’ a few weeks ago in which I spoke of a methodology that could be used as a social intervention for children who are victims of criminal indoctrination by family members who are gangsters.

This resulted in dialogue with more than one social worker who wished to know how this technique could be utilised in a practical manner. I explained that the intelligence arm of the police force and the front-line police officers who patrol the gang zones could identify the homes that are criminal enclaves.

The officers could determine where the children are most likely being trained to become future gangsters.

A programme could then be developed to create opportunities intended to divert the children from the family by minimising time spent with them. School attendance would be overseen by the social workers and the requisite expenses covered by the State.

So the social worker asked: “Are you saying that we will reward the parents who are not even trying, whilst ignoring the parents who are making an effort?”

I replied: “You are not doing it to protect or assist the parent or the child, you are doing it to protect society.”

She was confused! I then told her a story, which I will now tell you. This, I hope, will explain my stance.

A man was recently sentenced to 28 years in prison for raping the same woman at gunpoint on two separate occasions in the Central Village community. He was and is a creature beyond repentance or rehabilitation.

He deserved the death sentence and in some countries, he would have got it. This despite the fact that I don’t normally support the death sentence.

I first met him about two decades ago after his father, a gang leader, was killed. He was a baby about two feet tall when I went to search the house for his father’s guns. I saw him standing in the doorway, not yet having learnt to talk.

My team member, who I will call ‘Johno’, said to me. “See the next top killer there.”

I cautioned him about stereotyping people and harbouring such negative thoughts on how their lives would turn out. I was a lot younger and didn’t quite understand the true mechanism of the gang life cycle.

Johno replied: “You talking about lives. The only way to save people’s lives is to take this killer home and raise him yourself.”

Back then this would have actually been possible. However, I had young children of my own and the thought wasn’t even seriously considered.

I knew this baby’s father. He was known as ‘Poison Dart’, and was a deportee who ran the China Town gang in Central Village. He was quite a character
— confident, intelligent, and reasonably well-spoken. This was rare in an environment where gang members are morons, in my opinion, although masters of their own environment.

I will give you an example of Poison Dart’s peculiar behaviour. He was a criminal, but it was difficult to get people to give evidence against him. I, therefore, had no warrant for his arrest. He was always armed so I would patrol the community with my assigned team in hope of coming into contact with him, after which I could recover the gun and charge him for the offence.

Gun possession in those days could result in a seven-year sentence.

One day Poison Dart turned up at my police station, fortunately
— or maybe unfortunately
— without his gun. He asked for me and I told the officer to bring him to me.

He told me, and I quote: “I hear you driving around looking for me hoping to buck me up and burning out yu gas. I don’t want yu waste yu gas, Nico [as I was called] cause a man like me will never allow myself to buck up into a man like you. You haffi hunt me if yu wah find me.”

It was a lesson I haven’t forgotten. He then smiled and told the whole Criminal Investigations Branch (CIB) to have a great day.

Well, his over-confidence eventually caught up with him when he invaded a rival community all by himself and got himself killed.

Fast-forward two decades and his son, the two-foot tall baby grew up and became a senior member of the same gang.

He killed a taxi man and a policeman, shot at several other policemen
— including me
— and beat every case before he was eventually brought to justice for the repeated rape.

The standard to convict someone is really high in Jamaica.

As I went from crime scene to crime scene and visited the misery he created, Johno’s words came back to me every time and I wondered if I could have prevented the son’s crimes if I had just picked him up, brought him home and prevented so much misery and bloodshed of innocent people.

The reason I told the social worker this story, and the reason I am now telling you, is to explain that when you intervene in situations such as this, you are not just protecting the child, you are protecting future victims. It is, in essence, a form of self-defence.

Until the system and the society identify the long-term consequences of ignoring the children who are likely to be the subject of gang family indoctrination, we will never really change the culture of gang acceptance and gang rule. We will just have families like mine and many other families of Jamaica Constabulary Force and Jamaica Defence Force members who will be destined to fight the generations of gangs with no real end in sight.

The fight is no nearer to the end from the days when my father participated in it until now when my son will begin. Killing is an epidemic that is infecting the same families, generation after generation and our people just don’t understand.

Ignorance and choosing to ignore the realities you don’t like are not solutions. They are a formula for a never-ending crisis.

Feedback: drjasonamckay@gmail.com