by

Hold The Champagne, On The Anti Crime Convictions.……

A Jamaica Gleaner report on Wednesday February crowed “Jamaica Issues First Sentence Under Anti-Gang Legislation”.
Even as anoth­er head­line said “Anti-cor­rup­tion law gets the nod — Holness says Gov’t could­n’t delay pas­sage any longer.

If you are a Jamaican who care about the wan­ton slaugh­ter which occur dai­ly on the Island with­out the per­pe­tra­tors ever get­ting their just desserts you will be elat­ed about this.
In fact you may even begin to think that final­ly Jamaican soci­ety ‚and it’s author­i­ties intend to do some­thing about crime.
This anti crime leg­is­la­tion which we are told was intend­ed to stem the wave of crime on the Island was passed back in 2014. We are in the sec­ond month of 2017 and these are the very first convictions .
But wait there’s more.

According to the report .…

Jordan Markland, who is a member of the Klansman gang in Spanish Town, St Catherine was  sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for offences under the act. However, he will get credit for the more than one year and seven months he has already been imprisoned. Markland has been in custody since he was held last July by detectives from the Counter-Terrorism and Organised Crime Investigation Branch. Several other members of the Klansman gang who were captured with Markland were also charged under the anti-gang legislation. They are Sheldon Walters, otherwise called Terminate; Marlon Tulloch, otherwise called Gappy; Horace Swaby; and Jason McLean, otherwise Daeda.

Some mem­bers of the rival One Order Gang were also charged. They are Aston Daley, oth­er­wise called Daley Bwoy; Kemar Thompson, oth­er­wise called Spider Man; Jahnoi Laing, oth­er­wise called Rhin; and Nigel Laxbour, oth­er­wise called Tineyo. The anti-gang leg­is­la­tion seeks to stem crim­i­nal activ­i­ties such as mur­der, extor­tion, rob­bery and oth­er acts of vio­lence com­mit­ted by gang members.

Now before the crow­ing begin with the cel­e­bra­tion and hand slap­ping, lets take a look at the intent behind this law and what it is sup­posed to do. Then we can agree that Jamaican author­i­ties have no inter­est in putting the boot on the neck of seri­ous crime.
This and all oth­er anti gang leg­is­la­tion was pat­terned after the American Rico Statute which was designed to go after the Mafia and oth­er crim­i­nal enter­pris­es in the 1970’s .

The RICO law refers to the pros­e­cu­tion and defense of indi­vid­u­als who engage in orga­nized crime. In 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act in an effort to com­bat Mafia groups. Since that time, the law has been expand­ed and used to go after a vari­ety of orga­ni­za­tions, from cor­rupt police depart­ments to motor­cy­cle gangs. RICO law should not be thought of as a way to pun­ish the com­mis­sion of an iso­lat­ed crim­i­nal act. Rather, the law estab­lish­es severe con­se­quences for those who engage in a pat­tern of wrong­do­ing as a mem­ber of a crim­i­nal enter­prise. https://​www​.hg​.org/​r​i​c​o​-​l​a​w​.​h​tml
The Jamaican crim­i­nals now con­vict­ed were not con­vict­ed as crim­i­nals who com­mit­ted iso­lat­ed crim­i­nal acts . They were final­ly con­vict­ed in one of the most lib­er­al crim­i­nal cod­dling court sys­tem in the world, of engag­ing in racketeering.
Meaning they were con­vict­ed of com­mit­ting felonies on a con­tin­u­ous basis as part of, and in fur­ther­ance of a larg­er crim­i­nal empire, the gangs.
The KlansMan and One Order Gangs are two of the most estab­lished, most lethal crim­i­nal gangs oper­at­ing on the Island.
The KlansMan crim­i­nal gang is affil­i­at­ed with the Opposition People’s National Party, while the One Order Gang on the oth­er hand, has strong ties to the rul­ing Jamaica Labor Party.
If ever there was an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the framers of this so called anti-crime law to make a state­ment this was it . On this occa­sion, the Authorities, would have had a min­i­mum sen­tenc­ing guide­line enshrined in the law . This would have said from here on hence­forth we are turn­ing back the tide of wan­ton criminality .
But they chose to pass a law which does noth­ing more than add anoth­er statute to the books with­out the appro­pri­ate puni­tive com­po­nent to impact gang activ­i­ty and the wave of grue­some mur­ders sweep­ing the Island.
Putting togeth­er an Investigation which would even­tu­al­ly snag these vis­cous killers, much less gain con­vic­tions in the cor­rupt court sys­tem is not easy . These indi­vid­u­als named are not ordi­nary crim­i­nals these are the worse of the worse .
Why then are the pri­maries giv­en 10 years and spe­cial accom­mo­da­tion giv­en for time served?Lets see what the RICO statute did in sim­i­lar situations.
♦Violations are pun­ish­able by up to 20 years in prison. The sen­tence can be increased to life in prison if autho­rized by the under­ly­ing crime. ♦Offenders also face a fine of either $250,000, or dou­ble the amount of the pro­ceeds earned from the activity.
As a tool for dis­man­tling crim­i­nal enter­pris­es, fol­low­ing a con­vic­tion the gov­ern­ment is auto­mat­i­cal­ly giv­en a for­fei­ture of all of the defendant’s inter­est in the orga­ni­za­tion. So not only do defen­dants lose all their mon­ey and prop­er­ty that can be traced back to the crim­i­nal con­duct, but the orga­ni­za­tion itself can be severe­ly crip­pled. And the gov­ern­ment need not wait until after a guilty ver­dict, when the prop­er­ty expect­ed to become sub­ject to for­fei­ture may be dif­fi­cult to locate. The rules of pro­ce­dure in a RICO pros­e­cu­tion allow the gov­ern­ment to freeze the defendant’s assets before the case even goes to trial.
There is a right way to go after crim­i­nals, then there are attempts made which are designed to blow smoke up your ass .
This so called anti-crime law, like pret­ty much every­thing else done in rela­tion to crime is a smoke screen.
The gangs oper­at­ing on the Island under­stand that there is no stom­ach much less any desire to deal deci­sive­ly with them.
The mas­sive and wan­ton killings and illic­it activ­i­ty will cer­tain­ly not be impact­ed by this law. Essentially , this so called anti crime law just bare­ly makes the cut as a law which would rea­son­ably deal with one time offenders.
So hold the cham­pagne , put the glass­es down and turn off the music. This law is a sham it requires that the secu­ri­ty forces jump through innu­mer­able hoops to con­vict these killers ‚while the sen­tences under the law does noth­ing to reward their work or stem the tide of crime.

Comments are closed.

%d