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Where crime pays, crime stays
HENLEY MORGAN
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Jamaica is the best place in the world to be a criminal. With a murder rate that has reached as high as 55/100,000 of the populace, we are recognised as the murder capital of the world.
The conviction rate for serious crime is in the region of 35 per cent, ranking Jamaica among the poorest performers in apprehending and putting criminals behind bars. We tolerate lawlessness and disorderly conduct as a normal way of life. When a crime boss dies, he is recognised with an extravagant funeral and more "bling" than would be accorded the most honourable man.
But there is an even more sinister reason why Jamaica is the best place to be a criminal. In Jamaica crime pays and it pays big. In fact, it yields bigger pay days with less sweat and fewer risks than any other job or form of investment.
Every Jamaican knows about government contracts going to community dons, extortion money taken from business people on the pretence that it is for security and protection, and, of course, the widespread practice of criminals collecting "taxes" from taxi drivers and other commercial road users who travel through some of the tough inner-city communities. The proceeds gained from these criminal activities are part of a multi-billion dollar industry. Every once in a while, usually upon the death of a major crime figure, local newspapers and television stations will carry the picture of a mansion or other ill-gotten material gains that serve as evidence of the ostentatious lifestyle crime can buy one in this country.
But that is only the tip of the iceberg. There are other less discernible ways in which a lot of people get to "eat a food" out of the continuing conflagration of crime that has engulfed the nation. The brevity of a newspaper column will not allow me the space to expose fully the many ways in which this happens, so I will give just three examples and leave it to the imagination of the reader to think of what else might be happening.
I was shocked the first time I found out that some people get paid for starting and then stopping a war. How does this happen? Imagine that a usually violent community is enjoying a period of peace. The don wants a good payday so he starts a war. In these communities that's easy enough to do. Within days a politician or connected business interest contacts the don and seeks his help in ending the war which is hurting business, threatening the tourist trade or causing some other inconvenience to high and mighty people external to the conflict. There is a price for this service. The sum can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and on occasion even a motor vehicle has been thrown in as an incentive.
Here is another example of the "destructive genius" of people who feed off crime. Seeing the police busy at work accosting a group of young men, searching them and then hauling them off to jail usually gives one the comfort that the law is up and about, and taking its course. But how does the story end? Often there is no charge that can be laid against people taken in a dragnet. Under a writ of habeas corpus they would have to be released in 48 hours. Where you have corrupt policemen, one practice is to place a price on the head of the alleged perpetrator, say, $2,000. The uninformed mother, worried about what a night's stay in a police lock-up might do to her son, gets an early draw of her partner money and pays for his release. If there are 10 young men in the lock-up, that could add up to a cool $20, 000 for an afternoon's work that does not even break a sweat.
This final example really hurts. With so many of our men implicated in crime - in court to answer a charge, in jail or out on bail - almost every ghetto mother, it seems, has a lawyer. I meet these little people daily, working their fingers to the bone to "pay di laya who a deal wid di case". The plight of these people is compounded by an ineffective criminal justice system which former Attorney General AJ Nicholson is so proud of that he refused to lend his support to the report of the Special Task Force on Crime (May 2006) because it dared to reveal the flaws in the vaunted court system. Were it not for the poor ghetto mother and her interminable trek back and forth to the police station and the court house, the number of lawyers in Jamaica would be cut by half.
The mind of the reader may have run ahead of me to think of many more ways that crime pays. And guess what? Although you have no empirical evidence to prove that such a thing is happening, it probably is. Indeed, "the dying of the dog is the rising of the crow".
The government can change ministers of national security and announce crime plans until the cows come home. The murder rate which reached 489 at the end of April will not abate as long as crime pays. Where crime pays, crime stays.
- hmorgan@cwjamaica.com
HENLEY MORGAN
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Jamaica is the best place in the world to be a criminal. With a murder rate that has reached as high as 55/100,000 of the populace, we are recognised as the murder capital of the world.
The conviction rate for serious crime is in the region of 35 per cent, ranking Jamaica among the poorest performers in apprehending and putting criminals behind bars. We tolerate lawlessness and disorderly conduct as a normal way of life. When a crime boss dies, he is recognised with an extravagant funeral and more "bling" than would be accorded the most honourable man.
But there is an even more sinister reason why Jamaica is the best place to be a criminal. In Jamaica crime pays and it pays big. In fact, it yields bigger pay days with less sweat and fewer risks than any other job or form of investment.
Every Jamaican knows about government contracts going to community dons, extortion money taken from business people on the pretence that it is for security and protection, and, of course, the widespread practice of criminals collecting "taxes" from taxi drivers and other commercial road users who travel through some of the tough inner-city communities. The proceeds gained from these criminal activities are part of a multi-billion dollar industry. Every once in a while, usually upon the death of a major crime figure, local newspapers and television stations will carry the picture of a mansion or other ill-gotten material gains that serve as evidence of the ostentatious lifestyle crime can buy one in this country.
But that is only the tip of the iceberg. There are other less discernible ways in which a lot of people get to "eat a food" out of the continuing conflagration of crime that has engulfed the nation. The brevity of a newspaper column will not allow me the space to expose fully the many ways in which this happens, so I will give just three examples and leave it to the imagination of the reader to think of what else might be happening.
I was shocked the first time I found out that some people get paid for starting and then stopping a war. How does this happen? Imagine that a usually violent community is enjoying a period of peace. The don wants a good payday so he starts a war. In these communities that's easy enough to do. Within days a politician or connected business interest contacts the don and seeks his help in ending the war which is hurting business, threatening the tourist trade or causing some other inconvenience to high and mighty people external to the conflict. There is a price for this service. The sum can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and on occasion even a motor vehicle has been thrown in as an incentive.
Here is another example of the "destructive genius" of people who feed off crime. Seeing the police busy at work accosting a group of young men, searching them and then hauling them off to jail usually gives one the comfort that the law is up and about, and taking its course. But how does the story end? Often there is no charge that can be laid against people taken in a dragnet. Under a writ of habeas corpus they would have to be released in 48 hours. Where you have corrupt policemen, one practice is to place a price on the head of the alleged perpetrator, say, $2,000. The uninformed mother, worried about what a night's stay in a police lock-up might do to her son, gets an early draw of her partner money and pays for his release. If there are 10 young men in the lock-up, that could add up to a cool $20, 000 for an afternoon's work that does not even break a sweat.
This final example really hurts. With so many of our men implicated in crime - in court to answer a charge, in jail or out on bail - almost every ghetto mother, it seems, has a lawyer. I meet these little people daily, working their fingers to the bone to "pay di laya who a deal wid di case". The plight of these people is compounded by an ineffective criminal justice system which former Attorney General AJ Nicholson is so proud of that he refused to lend his support to the report of the Special Task Force on Crime (May 2006) because it dared to reveal the flaws in the vaunted court system. Were it not for the poor ghetto mother and her interminable trek back and forth to the police station and the court house, the number of lawyers in Jamaica would be cut by half.
The mind of the reader may have run ahead of me to think of many more ways that crime pays. And guess what? Although you have no empirical evidence to prove that such a thing is happening, it probably is. Indeed, "the dying of the dog is the rising of the crow".
The government can change ministers of national security and announce crime plans until the cows come home. The murder rate which reached 489 at the end of April will not abate as long as crime pays. Where crime pays, crime stays.
- hmorgan@cwjamaica.com
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