October of 1991 saw me walking away from the Jamaica Constabulary Force after serving a mere 10 years. I really loved my job. I could make a difference in people’s lives. Making that difference meant protecting and serving in the traditionally understood sense, but anyone familiar with policing in Jamaica knows it requires much more than that narrowly defined way we understand policing.

A Jamaican police offi­cer must be a coun­selor, medi­a­tor, tire chang­er, and pret­ty much every­thing to include being a gopher. (A low-rank­ing employ­ee is made to do the bid­ding of their supe­ri­ors). The (JCF) Jamaica Constabulary Force was formed after the Morant Bay Rebellion; it was a Night Watchman Force designed to pro­tect the inter­est of the monied upper caste from the poor underclass.

Paul Bogle:

Because of this part of its his­to­ry, the Constabulary is under­stand­ably viewed with sus­pi­cion by the poor­er class. This poor­er class is large­ly Black peo­ple of African ances­try. The Constabulary though viewed with sus­pi­cion by the under­class was not pop­u­lat­ed by Martians, it has always been pop­u­lat­ed with Black Jamaicans even though in its ear­ly years run by whites.
To this day, the police force is pop­u­lat­ed with the chil­dren of the poor­est, most hum­ble of our peo­ple, large­ly from rur­al parish­es. Jamaicans of a lighter skin tone and a lit­tle mon­ey would absolute­ly not con­done their kids becom­ing police offi­cers. In oth­er Jurisdictions being a police offi­cer is a respectable job, not so in Jamaica; many peo­ple say, “well, the police have basi­cal­ly caused it on them­selves,” there is some truth to that; God knows some of the peo­ple who have come and gone and are still a part of the Agency are of the worst kind. Despite that, I fun­da­men­tal­ly believe the best peo­ple leave ear­ly, and the oth­ers remain. There is hard­ly any oth­er expla­na­tion for the high attri­tion rate of offi­cers from the JCF.
As a young police offi­cer, I was put off by the upper crust, time and again, when they asked me,” why are you in the police force”? The ques­tions came despite them hav­ing called us to their homes to inves­ti­gate one thing or anoth­er. The irony was that though they want­ed their issue dealt with expe­di­tious­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly, they fun­da­men­tal­ly believed Jamaican police offi­cers should not or cer­tain­ly could nev­er be intel­li­gent or equal to them intellectually.

I wish I had a dol­lar for each time, as a young detec­tive sta­tioned at the Constant CIB, that an upper Saint Andrew res­i­dent asked me “where were you trained’? As much as they felt they were com­pli­ment­ing me for some per­ceived dif­fer­ence between me and some of my col­leagues, it also cre­at­ed a cer­tain dis­dain with­in me for what I per­ceived to be a Bourjois sense of faux aris­toc­ra­cy. It made me angry and dis­dain­ful of them; con­trary to what many of the poor­est peo­ple felt, many offi­cers pre­ferred them to the self-aggran­diz­ing, pseu­do-intel­lec­tu­al left-over aris­to­crats, many of whom had dark­er skin than we had.

The police Department has sur­vived despite a pha­lanx of forces arrayed against it. From my per­spec­tive, a Police Force, any Police force, would do pre­cious lit­tle more than sur­vive in Jamaica. I am sure you will be anx­ious to know what the hell I’m talk­ing about here? Think about this.

•A police depart­ment formed to pro­tect the rich from the poor masses:

•An emerg­ing Cult (Rastafarian’s) opposed the nat­ur­al order, and by exten­sion, the police, which wor­ships a false God Haile Selassie, a man who allowed his peo­ple to starve. At the same time, he fed the best foods to his pet lions:

•A polit­i­cal class that wants acri­mo­ny between the poor and the police for their own self­ish reasons:

•A Monied class which sees itself above the laws:

•A gen­er­al dis­dain for the rule of law by a large group of the population:

Those by them­selves would be a per­fect brew, enough to make any police force inca­pable of per­form­ing its man­date; only those are not the extent of the chal­lenges the police face. There are sec­ondary issues like Political inter­fer­ence, lack of fund­ing for police sta­tions, vehi­cles, train­ing, pro­tec­tive gear, arma­ment, crim­i­nal agi­ta­tion from groups pos­ing as legit­i­mate Human Rights Groups, an unruly pop­u­la­tion, and prob­a­bly the most fun­da­men­tal tool a police depart­ment or a peo­ple needs, tough leg­is­la­tion that puts crim­i­nals in jail and keep them there.

At the core of Jamaica’s present crime prob­lem lies the issue of the bour­geoisie and the new­ly edu­cat­ed blacks( nev­er si cum si) that police are above speak­ing to them. This does not mean they nec­es­sar­i­ly see them­selves as above the laws; they resent being policed by peo­ple they seri­ous­ly believe are beneath them. 

Some of the worst among offend­ers are those from the grass-roots who man­aged to claw their way from the clutch­es of abject pover­ty to respectabil­i­ty. Many are Lawyers; to date, some of the most cel­e­brat­ed and promi­nent Defense Attorneys are blacks who have been lib­er­at­ed from pover­ty through grit­ty dili­gence and hard work by their par­ents. Unfortunately, many still keep the street men­tal­i­ty and phys­i­cal ties to the crim­i­nal under­world, even though they will not hes­i­tate to tell you they are offi­cers of the court.

Supreme Court Kingston Jamaica:

In my 31 years liv­ing in Jamaica, I nev­er thought that the coun­try’s judges were cor­rupt; some were arro­gant, some lib­er­al but not cor­rupt. The Same is true of the coun­try’s Judges; as a law enforce­ment offi­cer dur­ing the 90’s I must say that with only a few excep­tions, I had a healthy respect for Judges, in my judg­ment, many seemed to under­stand the seri­ous task they are giv­en and the degree to which soci­ety’s sta­bil­i­ty rests with them even though I per­ceived that they were large­ly too lib­er­al. I was also mind­ful that out­dat­ed and archa­ic laws con­strain them. I can­not say I still feel that way.

Jamaica’s Judiciary may still be among the least cor­rupt group in the coun­try, but not all judges are hon­est players.

The pow­ers who cre­at­ed the police force under­stood the need for the most bang for their buck; they knew exact­ly how to strike the del­i­cate bal­ance between many black men with guns and the pow­er to use them, and hav­ing a buffer between them and those men. They want­ed the police to pro­tect them and their prop­er­ty from the maraud­ing mass­es, but they also need­ed to keep a cer­tain degree of con­trol, so they employed the strat­e­gy of “divide and conquer.”

Officers from the rank of con­sta­ble to Inspector are lumped togeth­er; they are the guys who do the heavy lift­ing and take all the risks. Then there are the gazetted ranks, from Deputy Superintendent to the com­mis­sion­er; these peo­ple are told they are civ­il ser­vants. They cer­tain­ly are not treat­ed or paid like civ­il ser­vants, but they are the ones who make sure the dic­tates of the monied inter­ests are main­tained. Politicians and oth­ers com­ing into posi­tions of author­i­ty from the ground up main­tained that con­trol even after the white plan­ta­tion own­ers had died out or had long left for England.

The kha­ki-clad crew gen­er­al­ly acquired their rank through long-ser­vice, Political ties, lick­ing boots, and in the minor­i­ty cas­es, through intel­li­gence and mer­it. I admit that the Constabulary has made attempts to recruit a smarter cadre of peo­ple to the gazetted corps over the last few years. However, the prob­lem with that strat­e­gy is that the qual­i­ty of the peo­ple who inter­act with the pub­lic on the streets seem to stay the same, or as some would argue, has got­ten worse. The impact of polit­i­cal manip­u­la­tion can­not be denied or over­stat­ed; the fall­out has helped ensure the present crime lev­el today. Many peo­ple who passed through the doors of the JCF will read­i­ly tell you that they left because they were not effec­tive. An ide­al­is­tic police con­sta­ble suf­fers trans­fer, have their records sul­lied, and worse for doing their job. The gazetted ranks have been the bain of the depart­ment, con­trary to what many peo­ple believe, shit does not flow upstream. The rank and file of the police depart­ment leave the Academy want­i­ng to do the right thing. The behav­ior of the senior offi­cers is respon­si­ble for the change in their atti­tudes and behavior.

It’s rather dif­fi­cult for a con­sta­ble to respect his job or com­mand­ing offi­cer if they are intel­li­gent peo­ple who see that com­mand­ing offi­cer as a lap dog to some filthy politi­cian or oth­er unde­sir­able. They will not accept dis­ci­pline or direc­tion from that offi­cer. Senior offi­cers have col­lud­ed with politi­cians to trans­fer good, hard-work­ing cops who play by the rules and uphold the laws. How do I know? I was trans­ferred for some­thing which hap­pened on a night when I was off duty, nev­er mind that that act was legal above board police work.….….… and I was­n’t there.

A Deputy com­mis­sion­er and a politi­cian had me trans­ferred until the peo­ple I served found out what tran­spired and all hell broke loose. Yes, peo­ple actu­al­ly demon­strat­ed on behalf of good cops. That Politician is still active­ly engaged in pol­i­tics as we speak; the lap-dog Deputy com­mis­sion­er has retired from the department.

Twenty-two years after I left the depart­ment, despite all the efforts at mod­ern­iza­tion, the police depart­ment is still embar­rass­ing­ly and woe­ful­ly inept at con­duct­ing the sim­plest inves­ti­ga­tion to put a low-down scum bag in prison.

In Jamaica, all you need is an appeal to the high­er Court with some lie or point to some tech­ni­cal­i­ty, real or per­ceived; you are almost guar­an­teed a rever­sal of the low­er court’s deci­sion. Nowhere is this more evi­dent than the recent release of the Spanish Town Terror group leader, Tesha Miller, the Klan’s Man Gang leader, affil­i­at­ed to the rul­ing People’s National Party. Miller was sen­tenced to prison for a series of felonies, includ­ing shoot­ing at Police Officers.

This means the Magistrates are nin­com­poops, or the Judges are being paid to release crim­i­nals back onto the streets.

Criminal Defense Lawyer Bert Samuels:

There may be legit­i­mate legal rea­sons why the Miller ver­dict was over­turned. There may be rea­sons why any appeals court may look at the argu­ments raised by an astute and com­pe­tent defense team in any case. This case is not the excep­tion; the rule, Magistrate rules and the appeals court reversed the low­er court. The Jamaican peo­ple and the cause of jus­tice are not being served when crim­i­nals walk free, blue or white collar.

This case is just anoth­er nail in the cof­fin of the Jamaican jus­tice sys­tem; every­one knows how bad it is. Only 5% of crim­i­nals are actu­al­ly held respon­si­ble for their crimes, irre­spec­tive of the sever­i­ty or fre­quen­cy. It is a slap in the peo­ple’s face when the same judges go back and over­turn deci­sions with­in that measly and mea­ger 5%. Our coun­try is fast becom­ing a failed state, a place where it is safe for no one to live. I would bet that all of the judges have American green cards, much like their polit­i­cal counterparts.

Miller’s always avail­able crim­i­nal defense lawyer, the omnipresent Bert Samuels, was quick to point out that his client did not beat the rap on a tech­ni­cal­i­ty but point­ed to what he sees as a pletho­ra of incon­sis­ten­cies in the pros­e­cu­tion’s case. Not unusu­al for Jamaica’s lawyers to pon­tif­i­cate, but what Samuels argu­ment points to, as far as he is con­cerned is, incom­pe­tence on the part of the Police, pros­e­cu­tor, and tri­al Magistrate.

It is not unusu­al for air­tight cas­es to be revis­it­ed by high­er courts in Jamaica and over­turned years lat­er, even after just­ly con­vict­ed crim­i­nals have been con­vict­ed and are serv­ing their sen­tences. This usu­al­ly hap­pens with high-pro­file gang­sters who can afford to pay high-priced unscrupu­lous lawyers to wran­gle them from the clutch­es of the law. In Jamaica, that is pret­ty easy; most judges are quite hap­py to oblige.

This does not absolve the police from blame, how­ev­er. How dif­fi­cult is it to pre­pare a case of Robbery with Aggravation and shoot­ing with intent? It“s 2013, and still, Jamaica’s cops con­tin­ue to be the laugh­ing-stock of the coun­try, resort­ing sim­ply to brute force, seem­ing­ly inca­pable of much else. It has become a source of embar­rass­ment to see sim­ple cas­es thrown out for bad police work or shod­dy pros­e­cu­tion. No doubt the coun­try will pay dear­ly for this.

Whether mon­ey is chang­ing hands or not, we have no proof, .….……not yet, but it’s impor­tant to note, anoth­er dan­ger­ous crim­i­nal was returned to the streets by Jamaica’s crim­i­nal lov­ing judges.

As long as Jamaica’s Criminal Justice System is so unjust to the inno­cent and the pow­er­less, we will con­tin­ue to see the Police screw up cas­es. They will have to con­tin­ue bring­ing jus­tice to crim­i­nals rather than bring­ing crim­i­nals to justice.