Two women caught import­ing cocaine into Jamaica were on Thursday sen­tenced to 18 months in prison and slapped with heavy fines. Those con­vict­ed are 30-year-old Alecia Williams of May Pen, Clarendon; and 25-year-old Babeth Bowland of Alexandria, St Ann. The two plead­ed guilty when they appeared before the Half-Way-Tree Criminal Court. The nar­cotics police had report­ed that on July 27, Bowland was return­ing to the island on a flight from Guyana; at Norman Manley International Airport; when she was stopped and searched.Nearly three pounds of cocaine was found in a pair of sneak­ers in her suitcase.The fol­low­ing day, Williams was return­ing on a flight from Trinidad; when she was also stopped and searched. The cops say she was found to be in pos­ses­sion of near­ly two pounds of cocaine​.In addi­tion to their 18-month sen­tences, the two were each fined 650-thou­sand dol­lars. They will serve an addi­tion­al six months in prison if they fail to pay the fines. Fri. Aug.05,2011 8:00pm(cour­tesy RJR news)

Mark Myrie aka (Buju Banton) a pop­u­lar Jamaican Reggae Artist was sen­tenced to 10 years in a Federal Prison on a charge of con­spir­a­cy to traf­fic Narcotics. Two women con­vict­ed in Jamaica of actu­al­ly being caught with pounds of cocaine. Myrie a man who some argue was set up, had no cocaine in his phys­i­cal or con­struc­tive pos­ses­sion. However there is a huge dis­par­i­ty in the sen­tences met­ed out in the two juris­dic­tions. My argu­ments are not whether I agree with the sen­tence giv­en to mis­ter Myrie, but rather the com­par­a­tive­ly light sen­tence hand­ed town to the two Jamaican women, for what I con­sid­er to be more egre­gious crimes. As a for­mer law enforce­ment offi­cer I would some­time catch a weird glance from col­leagues when I insist­ed that some­one stand­ing on a par­tic­u­lar cor­ner sell­ing weed would not be allowed to be seen stand­ing there with­out risk­ing arrest . Some would light­ly ban­ter that” it’s just weed Becks” . I respect­ful­ly dis­agreed that it was­n’t just weed. Even as a young Officer in my ear­ly 20“s I under­stood that if one per­son is allowed to stand on a cor­ner sell­ing weed , pret­ty soon anoth­er will come, it’s just the nature of the game. As soon as there is com­pe­ti­tion there is ani­mos­i­ty, jeal­ousy, and anger,. Then guns come into play . If that is allowed to con­tin­ue the crack deal­ers come, as it is now known as a drug spot , with the intro­duc­tion of cocaine , crack and oth­er nar­cot­ic drugs , comes the addicts, there goes the neigh­bor­hood, . Muggings, rapes, rob­beries, shoot­ings, and pret­ty soon a once decent neigh­bor­hood is reduced to a bloody waste­land. All because one Police Officer did not do his job.Thinking it’s just weed.

The prob­lem is not with the cannabis, or as we like to refer to it “weed’. The prob­lem is with the peo­ple who deal in it. I am not qual­i­fied to argue one way or anoth­er on the mer­its or demer­its of the weed, I have nev­er smoked it , I have had it in the form of a tea , frankly I can­not make an argu­ment for it’s effec­tive­ness in any regard and so I will refrain from com­ment­ing on that aspect of it. What I do know is, if police offi­cers did their jobs and removed weed sell­ers their jobs would be a lot eas­i­er. Jamaica presents a chal­lenge to police, it is moun­tain­ous, with a resul­tant abun­dance of gul­lies, arti­fi­cial and nat­ur­al. There are insuf­fi­cient roads , and even where there are roads there is an absence of plan­ning . A sus­pect run­ning from the police have bet­ter than a 9 – 1 chance of win­ning that bat­tle, because of the con­fig­u­ra­tion of the com­mu­ni­ties , even those that have been con­struct­ed with­in the last 20 years.

The Saint Catherine South Police, with respon­si­bil­i­ty for polic­ing the sprawl­ing unplanned com­mu­ni­ties that make up Portmore, and the more recent Greater Portmore com­mu­ni­ties, have bemoaned this fact. Even as the Police talk about the lack of vision in the design of these com­mu­ni­ties the National Housing trust con­tin­ue to build with the same out­dat­ed design flaws. Residents are forced to park their cars away from their homes and walk down nar­row alley­ways and cor­ri­dors to get to their homes. This puts their lives at tremen­dous risks , in crime infest­ed com­mu­ni­ties of Waterford, Passage fort, and Ensome city, Police are faced with the same chal­lenges polic­ing those com­mu­ni­ties. Communities like Arnett Gardens a peo­ple’s nation­al par­ty gar­ri­son, and Tivoli Gardens the noto­ri­ous Jamaica labor Party strong­hold have posed the same chal­lenges to law enforce­ment since their incep­tion. If police can­not effec­tive­ly tra­verse the maze of alley-ways and foot-paths , cou­pled with the Political pres­sure not to touch res­i­dents with­in those com­mu­ni­ties, it leaves one to won­der if the strat­e­gy behind these con­structs was not a delib­er­ate attempt at cre­at­ing gar­risons across Portmore and oth­er areas. I speak to this issue of not tak­ing the appro­pri­ate actions against per­ceived small stuff. And the con­se­quence that emanate from ignor­ing those small stuff.

Under no con­se­quence is it ever an appro­pri­ate sen­tence, the ones met­ed out to those two Jamaican women. When the poten­tial harm from 2 or 3 pounds of cocaine is cal­cu­lat­ed , how could any just per­son argue that those sen­tences weren’t mere slaps on the wrist. Does any­one won­der why some of our offi­cers choose to accept a bribe and look the oth­er way? Does any­one won­der why peo­ple who traf­fic in nar­cotics con­tin­ue to engage in drug deal­ing? Does any­one won­der why cit­i­zens do not both­er to report crimes ? Does any­one won­der why wit­ness­es do not turn up to tes­ti­fy? Is there any won­der why crim­i­nals are embold­ened to intim­i­date and even kill wit­ness­es? Do we under­stand why our hard work­ing offi­cers are de-moti­vat­ed from car­ry­ing out their man­date in light of these sen­tences? Is there any won­der why more and more Jamaicans find crim­i­nal activ­i­ties a viable means of mak­ing a living?

Jamaica’s crim­i­nal Justice sys­tem is a Criminal and trial-Lawyer’s par­adise, often times the lines between the two are blurred and there are no dis­tinc­tion between the two. Some of the revered and quot­ed Lawyers are actu­al­ly prod­ucts of the closed com­mu­ni­ties called gar­risons. Even as we pay respects to their accom­plish­ments, we must be mind­ful that the com­mu­ni­ties of their ori­gin shaped their world-view. These peo­ple have tremen­dous clout as a lob­by­ing force for their own Interests, but are also the same ones who make up the Judiciary. Judicial activism in Jamaica has lit­er­al­ly sin­gle-hand­ed­ly bro­ken the sys­tem, and pushed Jamaica to the brink of anarchy.

During my days in law enforce­ment Judges would rou­tine­ly admon­ish and dis­charge peo­ple brought to court for fight­ing police offi­cers, rip­ping their uni­forms and actu­al­ly injur­ing offi­cers in the law­ful exe­cu­tion of their duties. Yours tru­ly was not spared from those assaults. Those who talk about extra-judi­cial killings should know when their is no judi­cial rem­e­dy, some offi­cers may find it pru­dent to take the laws into their own hands. No offi­cer should have his life, limb, or that of his fam­i­ly threat­ened because he or she did their job. There are those in the media, urged on by their friends on the bench, who are now shout­ing about lack of pro­tec­tion for Judges, I mean are you kid­ding me? With sen­tences like the ones above. Jamaica’s judges have noth­ing to fear from law breakers.