There is something deeply unsettling about waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of bulldozers and discovering that the home you have spent years building is about to become a pile of rubble.

That is the human tragedy at the centre of the demolition exercise in Coopers Pen, Trelawny. About 20 houses were demolished in the early hours of Tuesday, leaving families displaced and, by their own accounts, with little opportunity to secure their belongings. Residents described the experience as shocking and devastating. Some said they had lived on the property for decades. One woman, visibly distressed, said she had nowhere to go; another described seeing her bed and household possessions left outside after her home was destroyed.

We should have empathy for these people. But empathy must not be confused with an endorsement of squatting. Two truths can exist simultaneously: People deserve compassion when they lose their homes, and people do not have an automatic right to occupy somebody else’s land. That distinction is essential if Jamaica is serious about building a society governed by the rule of law.

Importantly, the law cannot depend on whose story we find more emotionally compelling. According to the reports, the land in question is privately owned, while residents maintain that they have lived there for decades, and some believe they have legal claims. There have apparently been legal proceedings stretching back years, but important details about the court decisions, ownership, and residents’ claims remain contested or unclear.

That uncertainty is precisely why we must resist the temptation to turn this tragedy into a simplistic story about villains and victims. If the land belongs to someone else, that property right matters. If a court has determined that occupants have no legal right to remain, that determination matters. If residents have a legitimate legal claim, that claim must be heard and determined through the courts. And if a judgment has been obtained but enforcement was delayed for years, the circumstances surrounding that delay deserve scrutiny.

The rule of law means that none of us gets to decide that the law applies only when it suits us. It also means that the enforcement of the law must itself be lawful, transparent, and humane. That is where the Coopers Pen episode raises serious questions.

Residents told leading newspapers that they received no warning before the demolition. It is understood the operation began before dawn — with bulldozers, tractors, and sledgehammers — in the presence of the police. The news also reported that attempts to obtain answers from the bailiff and police at the scene were unsuccessful. These are not trivial matters. Even when occupants have no legal title, due process cannot become optional.

A government or private landowner cannot reasonably expect the public to accept a system in which people discover the enforcement of a property judgment only when heavy machinery arrives at their doors in the darkness. The law must be firm, but it must also be predictable.

There is another uncomfortable lesson here. Jamaica has normalised squatting for far too long. Squatting cannot become a pathway to ownership by default. People occupy land. Families build houses. Children grow up there. Communities emerge. Years become decades. Eventually, the occupation begins to look like ownership, but duration does not automatically transform trespass into title.

If we allow that principle to disappear, we create an extraordinary problem for property rights. What message are we sending to someone who legally purchases land, pays taxes, maintains it, and expects to exercise control over it?

Are we saying that if the owner does not act quickly enough, others can occupy it, build upon it, and eventually demand that the State regularise the situation? That cannot be the basis of a functioning property system.

At the same time, however, Jamaica must confront the conditions that produce squatting in the first place. People do not usually squat because they have an abundance of affordable housing options. They squat because land is expensive, housing is scarce, formal mortgages are inaccessible to many, informal settlements become intergenerational, and governments have historically struggled to provide enough serviced land and affordable housing for lower-income Jamaicans.

So we cannot solve squatting simply by demolishing houses. We have to address the housing crisis that makes squatting attractive or, for some families, seemingly unavoidable.

The real lesson: prevent the crisis before the bulldozer arrives. The most important lesson from Coopers Pen is that Jamaica needs a much stronger system for dealing with informal occupation before people spend 10, 20, 30, or 60 years building lives on disputed land.

The news reported that some residents had lived on the property for more than 40 years. Four decades is not merely a property dispute, it is an intergenerational policy failure. If authorities knew — or should have known — that a large community was occupying privately owned land, why was the matter allowed to continue for decades without a definitive resolution?

Why were people permitted to invest their life savings, labour, and family resources in permanent structures if the occupation was legally untenable? And why should a landowner have to wait decades to regain possession of his or her property? These are questions that transcend political party.

What should happen now?

First, the affected families need immediate humanitarian assistance — temporary accommodation, food, access to basic services, assistance with recovering belongings, and support for vulnerable people, particularly children, the elderly, and persons with disabilities. It is understood that the Government and other State agencies have stepped forward to provide support. That is not rewarding squatting, it is recognising human suffering.

Second, there must be clarity about the legal basis for the demolition. The public deserves to know who authorised the operation, what judgment or legal instrument was being enforced, what notice was required, what notice was given, and whether all procedural requirements were satisfied. According to sources, adequate notice was given to the squatters.

Third, the remaining residents should not be left in limbo. If another demolition is contemplated, they deserve clear, lawful notice and access to appropriate legal advice and due process.

Fourth, Government should establish a mechanism for rapid resolution of long-standing informal settlements. When occupants have no legal claim, they should be given a realistic pathway to relocation when necessary. When there is a legitimate possibility of regularisation or purchase, that should be assessed transparently. When private ownership is undisputed, however, regularisation should not become an automatic confiscation of private property.

Fifth, Jamaica needs a serious national land and housing strategy that makes lawful occupation easier than squatting. That means more serviced land, affordable housing, accessible financing, clearer land records, faster dispute resolution, and stronger enforcement against new illegal settlements.

And perhaps, most importantly, we need to stop waiting until communities become politically powerful or humanitarian disasters occur before we act.

The Coopers Pen residents deserve our compassion. Seeing a lifetime of work reduced to rubble is heartbreaking. Their distress should not be mocked, dismissed, or weaponised for political purposes. But compassion cannot require us to pretend that private property rights do not exist. Equally, respect for property rights cannot require us to abandon our humanity. That is the balance Jamaica must learn to strike.

A mature democracy should be capable of saying: You cannot live indefinitely on land that does not belong to you without lawful authority. But it should also be capable of saying: We will not treat you as though you are less than human when the law requires you to leave.

The lessons from Coopers Pen are, therefore, bigger than one demolition exercise: Do not squat on people’s land and do not allow people to squat for decades then pretend the resulting humanitarian crisis came from nowhere.

Oneil Madden is a lecturer of academic literacy and French and a PhD candidate in didactics and linguistics (French/English) at Clermont Auvergne University, France. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or maddenoniel@yahoo.com.

Oneil Madden