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Defense of one's community is a right claimed by humans, ants, bees and other social animals. Should be treated them as organized gangs?
If we eliminated corner crews then will the JCF defend the corner?
Rights groups say provisions too wide, could affect corner crews
BY ALICIA DUNKLEY-WILLIS Senior staff reporter dunkleya@jamaicaobserver.com
Friday, October 04, 2013
REPRESENTATIVES of three rights organisations yesterday asked the Joint Select Committee of Parliament to reconsider several of the provisions in the proposed anti-gang law, arguing that the Bill was too wide, leaving openings for police abuse and could criminalise corner crews which, they say, are not nearly as dangerous as established gangs.
Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ), in a joint presentation with the Jamaica Civil Society Coalition (JCSC), argued that a specific focus on gangs will be counterproductive if it extends to corner crews, which are the lowest level in the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s hierarchy of gangs.
“If it extends that treatment to those gangs that it assigns to the more mature criminal gangs, it could assign a permanent back seat to the policy of community-based policing, and we submit strongly that such a focus in this Act, which seeks to give it effect, will not address Jamaica’s violence and murder crisis in a real way,” JFJ’s Executive Director Dr Carolyn Gomes argued.
Furthermore, JCSC Director Horace Levy pointed out that the definition of criminal organisation in the Act is very broad.
“It is so broad that it can include what we call ‘defence crews’ — groups of youths in communities that are not in the top number one or two groups the police have identified. They are not organised to rape, carry out assassinations, trade in guns and drugs, or to commit robberies. They are there to protect and defend their communities, and our fear is that that broad definition of criminal organisation is broad enough to encompass that,” he said.
Added Levy: “They are there to protect their communities, they use guns, they kill, they should be prosecuted, but they are not criminal gangs in the same sense as a Shower Posse, they are a different level, and you can’t treat that level in the same way.”
Making reference to an earlier presentation by Police Commissioner Owen Ellington in which he spoke to the three tiers of gangs and detailed their operations, Levy said: “With all respect to the commissioner, the large majority are not used in the way he’s talking about. We are saying this on the basis of experience and research that it is the exception that goes in the direction he is talking about.”
National Security Minister Peter Bunting, who chairs the committee, was however quick to point out that, while the corner crews were not at the level of these gangs, they could be contracted by the second and third generation gangs to carry out illegal activities.
Asked whether he thought these defence crews should be tolerated, Levy said “we are not saying we should accept these groups as lawful, all we are saying is that we can’t treat them like we treat criminal gangs of the second and third generation gangs”.
How that opinion will be treated ultimately is anyone’s guess, based on the national security minister’s response.
“I don’t think any member here doesn’t agree in addressing the root cause of social injustice and other deficiencies at the community level, which creates a breeding ground for some of what we see happening. I, however, think that crime control measures, which are essential, are critically important, however, I don’t know any society that relies entirely on that without crime control measures,” Bunting noted.
He also argued that major gangs, some of whose members are abroad, are still able to manipulate the defence crews into committing double and triple murders.
“I still think we need these offences to go after some of those kingpins who have operated with impunity for a very long time, and if we don’t have something like this [they] will continue to do so,” he said.
Justice Minister Senator Mark Golding, in noting that he endorsed the “general thrust” of the submissions, said he believed attacking crime required a multidimensional set of solutions, but noted that the piece of legislation formally called the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) Act 2013 was one part of the needed response.
In the meantime, the JFJ and the JCSC have also argued that the “orientation of the Bill is toward increasing the repressive side of law enforcement rather than the preventative side”, and makes no provision for the rehabilitation of persons and communities who have suffered as a result of their socioeconomic position. They also maintained that the Bill focuses more on State security rather than citizen security, and argued that there was no provision for the treatment of juveniles when charged with offences under the Act.
Yvonne McCalla Sobers of Families Against State Terrorism, in her presentation, argued that anti-gang laws are difficult to enforce because they penalise for association rather than behaviour.
“Wherever these Acts have been implemented there have been difficulties with enforcement,” she said, noting that “at-risk youth become easy targets for a law like this”.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/...#ixzz2glOk7xvi
If we eliminated corner crews then will the JCF defend the corner?
Rights groups say provisions too wide, could affect corner crews
BY ALICIA DUNKLEY-WILLIS Senior staff reporter dunkleya@jamaicaobserver.com
Friday, October 04, 2013
REPRESENTATIVES of three rights organisations yesterday asked the Joint Select Committee of Parliament to reconsider several of the provisions in the proposed anti-gang law, arguing that the Bill was too wide, leaving openings for police abuse and could criminalise corner crews which, they say, are not nearly as dangerous as established gangs.
Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ), in a joint presentation with the Jamaica Civil Society Coalition (JCSC), argued that a specific focus on gangs will be counterproductive if it extends to corner crews, which are the lowest level in the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s hierarchy of gangs.
“If it extends that treatment to those gangs that it assigns to the more mature criminal gangs, it could assign a permanent back seat to the policy of community-based policing, and we submit strongly that such a focus in this Act, which seeks to give it effect, will not address Jamaica’s violence and murder crisis in a real way,” JFJ’s Executive Director Dr Carolyn Gomes argued.
Furthermore, JCSC Director Horace Levy pointed out that the definition of criminal organisation in the Act is very broad.
“It is so broad that it can include what we call ‘defence crews’ — groups of youths in communities that are not in the top number one or two groups the police have identified. They are not organised to rape, carry out assassinations, trade in guns and drugs, or to commit robberies. They are there to protect and defend their communities, and our fear is that that broad definition of criminal organisation is broad enough to encompass that,” he said.
Added Levy: “They are there to protect their communities, they use guns, they kill, they should be prosecuted, but they are not criminal gangs in the same sense as a Shower Posse, they are a different level, and you can’t treat that level in the same way.”
Making reference to an earlier presentation by Police Commissioner Owen Ellington in which he spoke to the three tiers of gangs and detailed their operations, Levy said: “With all respect to the commissioner, the large majority are not used in the way he’s talking about. We are saying this on the basis of experience and research that it is the exception that goes in the direction he is talking about.”
National Security Minister Peter Bunting, who chairs the committee, was however quick to point out that, while the corner crews were not at the level of these gangs, they could be contracted by the second and third generation gangs to carry out illegal activities.
Asked whether he thought these defence crews should be tolerated, Levy said “we are not saying we should accept these groups as lawful, all we are saying is that we can’t treat them like we treat criminal gangs of the second and third generation gangs”.
How that opinion will be treated ultimately is anyone’s guess, based on the national security minister’s response.
“I don’t think any member here doesn’t agree in addressing the root cause of social injustice and other deficiencies at the community level, which creates a breeding ground for some of what we see happening. I, however, think that crime control measures, which are essential, are critically important, however, I don’t know any society that relies entirely on that without crime control measures,” Bunting noted.
He also argued that major gangs, some of whose members are abroad, are still able to manipulate the defence crews into committing double and triple murders.
“I still think we need these offences to go after some of those kingpins who have operated with impunity for a very long time, and if we don’t have something like this [they] will continue to do so,” he said.
Justice Minister Senator Mark Golding, in noting that he endorsed the “general thrust” of the submissions, said he believed attacking crime required a multidimensional set of solutions, but noted that the piece of legislation formally called the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) Act 2013 was one part of the needed response.
In the meantime, the JFJ and the JCSC have also argued that the “orientation of the Bill is toward increasing the repressive side of law enforcement rather than the preventative side”, and makes no provision for the rehabilitation of persons and communities who have suffered as a result of their socioeconomic position. They also maintained that the Bill focuses more on State security rather than citizen security, and argued that there was no provision for the treatment of juveniles when charged with offences under the Act.
Yvonne McCalla Sobers of Families Against State Terrorism, in her presentation, argued that anti-gang laws are difficult to enforce because they penalise for association rather than behaviour.
“Wherever these Acts have been implemented there have been difficulties with enforcement,” she said, noting that “at-risk youth become easy targets for a law like this”.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/...#ixzz2glOk7xvi
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