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EDITORIAL - Ellington, Bunting Should Assess Their Future
Published: Thursday | November 21, 2013
THIS NEWSPAPER genuinely admires Owen Ellington, Jamaica's commissioner of police.
He is charismatic, photogenic, and articulate. His presence is compelling. Moreover, Mr Ellington is perhaps the most intelligent head of the constabulary Jamaica has had in recent history. His analyses of Jamaica's crime problem are, on the face of it, penetrating.
However, at this time, on Mr Ellington's watch, crime in Jamaica is spiralling out of control - and with it diminishing confidence in the constabulary to staunch the crisis.
For instance, given the current trajectory, there will be just over 1,200 murders in Jamaica this year, around 120, or 11 per cent more than in 2011. That will reverse the trend of the three years after 2009 when homicides declined about a third.
Mr Ellington was, indeed, the police chief during the years of decline. But the circumstance in which the declines in murders happened, after the peak of 1,683 homicides in 2009, is also significant.
There was Tivoli Gardens!
In 2010, the security forces entered the west Kingston redoubt of the mobster Christopher Coke and routed his militia, who were attempting to prevent Coke's arrest and extradition to the United States. Jamaica's criminal gangs were in retreat.
The police, however, have not solidified and built upon that initial success. The criminal gangs and extortionists, including in west Kingston, are back with a vengeance.
Indeed, of the approximately 1,100 people murdered so far this year, nearly 80 per cent of the deaths were reported by the police to be gang-related. Based on historic trends in six out of every 10 murders, Mr Ellington's constabulary will have no specific suspects and make no arrests.
Of the four cases that will be 'cleared up', three and a half will be the result of suspects either being killed in firefights with the police or being themselves victims of murder. Or, put another way, only around 12 per cent of the perpetrators of murders risk being arrested and possibly facing the courts.
That, clearly, is an environment in which criminals can operate with impunity.
At the same time, Mr Ellington appears to have made little headway in transforming the constabulary from a paramilitary organisation to one in which policing is based on trust and citizens' consent. Jamaica's police kill more than 200 people annually. In too many instances, they are accused of extrajudicial killings.
Assess force's failures
It would be a pity to lose someone of the obvious intelligence and operational experience of Mr Ellington. The situation, however, demands that he seriously assess his options, including the possibility of the Government convening a commission of enquiry into the failings of policing in Jamaica.
But it is not only Mr Ellington who must face scrutiny. The reversal of the post-Tivoli Gardens gains has occurred under the ministerial watch, and policy direction, of Peter Bunting, the minister of national security.
Mr Bunting is a bright man who came to government with achievements in the private sector. It must be disappointing to him, as it is to us, that he is unable to replicate those successes in the national security ministry. Indeed, he quietly abandoned his pledge to reduce homicides in Jamaica to 12 per 100,000 by 2016.
Maybe Mr Bunting's talents would be best utilised elsewhere in the Government. That is a thought for Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller
Published: Thursday | November 21, 2013
THIS NEWSPAPER genuinely admires Owen Ellington, Jamaica's commissioner of police.
He is charismatic, photogenic, and articulate. His presence is compelling. Moreover, Mr Ellington is perhaps the most intelligent head of the constabulary Jamaica has had in recent history. His analyses of Jamaica's crime problem are, on the face of it, penetrating.
However, at this time, on Mr Ellington's watch, crime in Jamaica is spiralling out of control - and with it diminishing confidence in the constabulary to staunch the crisis.
For instance, given the current trajectory, there will be just over 1,200 murders in Jamaica this year, around 120, or 11 per cent more than in 2011. That will reverse the trend of the three years after 2009 when homicides declined about a third.
Mr Ellington was, indeed, the police chief during the years of decline. But the circumstance in which the declines in murders happened, after the peak of 1,683 homicides in 2009, is also significant.
There was Tivoli Gardens!
In 2010, the security forces entered the west Kingston redoubt of the mobster Christopher Coke and routed his militia, who were attempting to prevent Coke's arrest and extradition to the United States. Jamaica's criminal gangs were in retreat.
The police, however, have not solidified and built upon that initial success. The criminal gangs and extortionists, including in west Kingston, are back with a vengeance.
Indeed, of the approximately 1,100 people murdered so far this year, nearly 80 per cent of the deaths were reported by the police to be gang-related. Based on historic trends in six out of every 10 murders, Mr Ellington's constabulary will have no specific suspects and make no arrests.
Of the four cases that will be 'cleared up', three and a half will be the result of suspects either being killed in firefights with the police or being themselves victims of murder. Or, put another way, only around 12 per cent of the perpetrators of murders risk being arrested and possibly facing the courts.
That, clearly, is an environment in which criminals can operate with impunity.
At the same time, Mr Ellington appears to have made little headway in transforming the constabulary from a paramilitary organisation to one in which policing is based on trust and citizens' consent. Jamaica's police kill more than 200 people annually. In too many instances, they are accused of extrajudicial killings.
Assess force's failures
It would be a pity to lose someone of the obvious intelligence and operational experience of Mr Ellington. The situation, however, demands that he seriously assess his options, including the possibility of the Government convening a commission of enquiry into the failings of policing in Jamaica.
But it is not only Mr Ellington who must face scrutiny. The reversal of the post-Tivoli Gardens gains has occurred under the ministerial watch, and policy direction, of Peter Bunting, the minister of national security.
Mr Bunting is a bright man who came to government with achievements in the private sector. It must be disappointing to him, as it is to us, that he is unable to replicate those successes in the national security ministry. Indeed, he quietly abandoned his pledge to reduce homicides in Jamaica to 12 per 100,000 by 2016.
Maybe Mr Bunting's talents would be best utilised elsewhere in the Government. That is a thought for Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller
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