-MPs conference hears
The illicit drug trade remains the toughest public safety challenge in the region, which needs to confront problems like the unemployment of young people and the proliferation of firearms which are being exploited by criminal enterprises.
Addressing “Challenges in Public Safety” when the 34th Annual Regional Conference of the Caribbean, the Americas and the Atlantic Region of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) continued yesterday at the Guyana International Conference Centre, participants noted the heavy losses suffered by their economies as a result of crime. Two starkly contrasting presentations were made by Jamaica’s Speaker Delroy Chuck and Guyana’s Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, who however both agreed on the importance of a regional approach.
With Jamaica losing nearly 5% of its GDP annually as a result of crime, House Speaker Delroy Chuck acknowledged that the problem is more severe in the island than in rest of the Caribbean. As a result of crime, he said huge amounts are being spent on security by both the public and private sector, while the situation continues to place a heavy burden on state agencies, especially hospitals. He identified “guns, gangs and drugs” as the major contributors to the situation and noted that in some instances, inner city communities in the island have been overtaken by criminal gangs. “In these communities, it is not the state that run things,” Chuck said, “It is the criminal gangs that control and run things.”
Chuck added that the legislators are not throwing their hands in the air but have to face the reality that they have not overcome the problems although they are doing everything possible. As an example, he explained that one of the ways of neutralising gangs is engaging them along with religious leaders and the police. He said a lot could be done if political representatives recognise that gang members are “legitimate members” of the communities. “The only way you can solve the problem is you have to deal with them,” he said, noting that a lot of people do not believe they should be engaged. “So you engage them in legitimate activity… I don’t talk to them unless a pastor and a police are present in a group like this… and that is how we have been able to neutralise gang warfare in Jamaica,” he added.
According to Chuck, Jamaica has managed to reduce the amount of cocaine flowing into the country but he reported that the drug trade is still alive and well in the Caribbean region, where it is still a major source of wealth. He added that there is large section of the population that believes it is their right to use marijuana as well as persons who pay huge amounts for the cultivation of the plant for export.
Meanwhile, he classified gangs as an economic problem, explaining that they are the result of large numbers of young men, between the ages of 16 and 25, most of whom have left school without the education and skills needed for employment. This has made them easy targets of crime bosses who use them to fight turf wars for control. “And when they control the turf, they are able to extort, they are able to rob and to control economic activities in these areas,” he pointed out, later noting that a lot of murders are the result of the gang violence and reprisals. He said alternative occupation and vocation needs to be found for young men, which he thought would go a far way towards resolving most of the challenges of public safety on the island. Asked about social interventions, he noted that billions have been spent on projects in inner city communities but noted that instant gratification of lucrative criminal activity has proved to have greater appeal. “The real problem is the lack of opportunity to capture the young minds,” he added.
The access to guns, Chuck added, compounds the gang problem and he said the weapons have been sourced primarily from the United States and there has been a lack of cooperation by international agencies in checking the flow of guns. However, he noted a new phenomenon that has seen drug trade with Haiti in exchange for guns. In the Jamaican inner city communities, he said, there is no shortage of guns.
The corruption of the police force is also a major challenge to public safety, Chuck said, adding that there is a feeling that law enforcement has been compromised to such an extent that there is a general feeling that an entirely new force is needed to combat crime. “The truth is the police force is not succeeding at the moment,” he admitted, saying law enforcement had become part of the problem.
Part of the solution to the problem is rehabilitating the inner city communities, Chuck felt. However, while it is seen as crucial for law abiding citizens to take control of the communities, he said it creates a dilemma over whether guns should be made more accessible to the citizenry since criminals are heavily armed. “There are people in Jamaica who say ‘No, we must take [guns] away from the criminal gangs’ but the debate continues because the criminal gangs are not giving up their guns, the police can’t get them and so most of these communities because criminal gangs control the guns they control the communities,” he declared.
Stability
Meanwhile, Rohee said the challenges to security in the region are complex but agreed that the drug trade is the greatest threat to public safety in the region, explaining that it poses a serious threat to stability. He also cited violent crime, gangs and gang violence, terrorism, the involvement of youth and crime, inadequate law enforcement capacity, the perception of a slow judicial process as well as unemployment and underemployment among the other major challenges.
In this context, he emphasised the need for strong and effective law enforcement arrangements. Among other things, he noted that the budgetary allocations for the security sector have been steadily increased in order to ensure it is equipped to deal with the problem. Rohee also noted the involvement of community policing groups to support law enforcement agencies. Additionally, he stressed the need for robust judicial action, to ensure that justice is done and that the prison system is not clogged.
He said social intervention is another critical issue, having regard to the unemployment of young persons. In this vein, he said the government has implemented some projects to deal with the situation, noting the Labour Ministry’s National Youth and Empowerment Training Programme, the Guyana Defence Force’s Technical Vocational Educational Programme targeting young people in depressed communities, and the Ministry of Youth’s Training Programme that provides skills training.
Rohee noted that at the regional level, Caricom also has steps to deal with the major challenges, recalling that in 2001 the Heads of Government had decided that states ought to set up National Law and Order Commissions to involve civil society in finding the solution. He said a Commission has been active in Guyana since 2005 and has been providing yeoman service. More recently, he said, a regional programme and action plan was agreed to by regional security ministers at the Ministerial Conference on Illicit Drugs, Trafficking, Transnational Organised Crime and Terrorism and Challenges for Security Development in the Caribbean, and he was confident that with its implementation it would see a structured approach to the problem. He also said that in Guyana, the criminal law architecture has been put in place to support the law enforcement agencies and make them more responsive to the needs and dynamics of the society.
Although Rohee was accused of giving a “diplomatic” presentation in contrast to Chuck’s “frank” talk, the Minister explained that he needed to be careful as the home minister in the host nation. Bristling at the suggestion that his presentation was sanitised, he said he merely sought to be balanced before comparing crime statistics of Jamaica and Guyana. “It is more important to talk of the efforts society is taking to deal with the problems,” he said.
