The word ‘Kapo’ in Jamaica may resonate as a cultural icon from our history. In World War II concentration camps it meant something different. Kapo were Jewish prisoners who were appointed to assist in prisoner management. Although not entirely, to a large degree, they were mostly affiliated with betrayal, sadism, and cruelty to their own kind.

The Hipo corps was an auxiliary unit made up of Danish citizens in occupied Denmark. It was formed by the Gestapo and is known for hunting down Danish citizens believed to be enemies of the German occupation army, particularly the resistance movement.

The Vichy was the authoritarian French Government formed during World War II to govern on behalf of the Germans. They are considered collaborators by the French, and are still considered traitors in any account of French history.

Collaborators and collaboration with enemies of the people and of the State did not end with World War II. There have been many cases of people collaborating with the enemy Government of their own before and after World War III. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, members of the Communist Party, were executed as spies in the United States during the communist purge for being agents of the Soviet Union in the post-World War II.

It doesn’t stop, but what causes it? I have not been cursed to live in a country occupied by a foreign army. However, I have policed inner-city, gang-infested slums for most of my adult life. I have seen the gangs function like the Gestapo, destroying the fabric of the community they operate in, and have seen people who know of their wrongs collaborating with them in every aspect of their evil.

You may not think you know them if you are not exposed to the inner city, but they are the ones at the roadblock after a police operation, usually female and the most vocal. They know the suffering the gangs cause, and they continue.

I recall rebuking one of them preventing me from arresting a gang member who had sexual relations with a 14-year-old girl. As she ‘traced’ me, she said, “Mi have baby when mi a 14 to and nuttin nuh do me.”

The scientist in me wanted to evaluate this demon, but the cop in me just wanted to handcuff her. It is worth examining, though; often victims of crimes fail to feel victimised, or because they were victimised, they want others to suffer the same fate.

Human rights activists are also staunch supporters of criminals operating in inner-city communities. I guess this is a form of collaboration too. However, it is their ignorance, largely, that causes this. They mostly come from uptown and operate like rebels without a cause. So forgive them, Lord; they know not what they do. Or do they?

They see the news, they read the newspapers, and they see the videos. Are they ignorant or do they choose to be blind? Let’s assume they do. Why do they still offer support to the predators? Because that is their function. That is the answer; ask them. Their function is to target State abuses, so to hell with the victims of gang abuse.

“I was just doing my job, or I was just following orders was the most used term at the Nuremberg Trials.

Now, back to the noisy ‘bleacher’ at the roadblock. She supports because of selfishness. This is the common factor in all of the collaborators. The Kapo, the Hipo, the Vichy, and the gang collaborators do it because of their own self-preservation and selfishness. There is no feeling that we as a group have a common enemy and must stand together. There are benefits to the collaboration in some way, shape, or form. That is what creates collaborators.

This will continue in theatres of war and in communities under the control of gangs. Once there is a benefit, there are people who will collaborate. The real solution to this is to remove the benefits.

We cannot do much about war-torn zones invaded by foreign states, but we can do something to change the environments where treachery can reign because of the existence of gangs.

Slowly, but surely, we are changing. Many pivotal gang figures have disappeared from the communities not only because they fear the police, but because the stranglehold the gangs had has slipped. The families of their victims will kill them. The anti-gang legislation has devastated them. The Firearms Act has removed them from society, once charged. The walls are cracking.

Extortion victims from the business community have refused to pay. One I know says he would prefer to lock the business rather than give money to killers to buy bullets to kill innocent people, so he locked it down. He should have been vested with the Order of Jamaica.

What I know is that gangs can only be created where poverty exists. This is the disease. There is no gang in my community for a variety of reasons, one of which is that they would require collaborators. There is no need in my community, so no gangs.

Eradicate need, make gangs redundant, and gangs and their collaborators could become a thing of the past.

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