WAR ON JAMAICAN POLICE FOR DOING THEIR JOBS:

After Bruce Golding was forced to con­front the real­i­ty that Tivoli Gardens the epic cen­ter of his West Kingston con­stituen­cy was unten­able he act­ed. Golding act­ed because he was forced to act. I wrote an open let­ter to Golding which was car­ried in the Daily Gleaner upon his ascen­den­cy. In that let­ter I asked the then Prime Minister to be dif­fer­ent, I implored him to take on the man­tle of Bustamante , Hugh Shearer in a renewed com­mit­ment to Jamaica, I told him if he was pre­pared to do the heavy lift­ing, the peo­ple would fol­low him and he would be remem­bered as the Prime Minister. Not just anoth­er, in a line of prime ministers.

Mister Golding either did not read that let­ter, or he bla­tant­ly ignored it. Either way Mister Golding end­ed up the worse for it. Despite his short-com­ings, and we could spend our life­time argu­ing those from a polit­i­cal per­spec­tive, Golding was forced to rec­og­nize that the gar­ri­son cul­ture as it exist­ed could not be main­tained in this new world. Golding gave our coun­try Portia Simpson Miller and the sad incom­pe­tent lot the coun­try has today. And reduced his lega­cy to a foot note in his­to­ry. Leaders are not made they are born, one can­not lead from behind, one must make tough unpop­u­lar deci­sions to be a leader,buck the trends, remove the sta­tus quo. Golding in the end was capa­ble of neither.

As such Mister Golding was forced to release the pow­er of the state to repel what was a well orches­trat­ed and defi­ant attack on the rule of law and the Jamaican state by exten­sion. In the end over 70 peo­ple were report­ed­ly killed and Tivoli Gardens was annexed to Jamaica. Whether the peo­ple of that com­mu­ni­ty uses this oppor­tu­ni­ty to ingra­ti­ate them­selves with the oth­er com­mu­ni­ties which make up our coun­try, is up to them to decide. They have been released from the ten­ta­cles of gar­ri­son pol­i­tics. What they do with that oppor­tu­ni­ty will deter­mine whether or not the secu­ri­ty forces will ever have to enter that com­mu­ni­ty with force of arms, or they will ben­e­fit from the ser­vices of com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing which all civ­i­lized peo­ple are enti­tled to.

Scene: Military APC nav­i­gat­ing streets in Hannah town after ter­ror­ists went on a rampage. 

Revisionist his­to­ri­ans and crim­i­nal sup­port­ing groups if allowed will rewrite the sto­ry of what hap­pened, they will lie to the world that 70 inno­cent peo­ple were mur­dered by agents of the state. Nowhere in those litany of lies and dis­tor­tions will you see the Police sta­tions which were razed, burned to the ground by Jamaica’s urban terrorists.

Pictures of the Hannah Town Police Station on fire, and the Cross Rds. Police Station after a ter­ror assault on them

Nowhere will you see them talk­ing about the offi­cers killed in that assault. Nowhere will you hear about the scores of armed thugs who pledged their alle­giance to Christopher (Duddus) Coke. And nowhere will you hear these char­la­tans speak about the thugs who picked up their weapons and moved to Tivoli Gardens to do bat­tle against the state. When their lies are writ­ten and the revi­sion­ist sto­ries told there will be no men­tion of Officers of this Cop.Police Sargeant Wayne (Max) Henriques, who was called away from cel­e­brat­ing his wed­ding anniver­sary with his beau­ti­ful wife. In the Jamaican police ser­vice it is called (exi­gen­cies of the ser­vice).Sargeant Henriques could have said no when he was called, upon which he would have faced dis­ci­pli­nary action. He chose to hon­or his oath, the next time his fam­i­ly saw him again was when they iden­ti­fied his body at the morgue. Sergeant Henriques and his col­leagues were cut down in a hail of bul­lets on moun­tain view avenue as they tried to help strand­ed motorist. Wayne and oth­er police offi­cers who lost their lives will not be remem­bered by nei­ther of the two polit­i­cal gangs which alter­nate in rip­ping off our coun­try. They will not be remem­bered by the Editorial board of the news papers. They will not be hon­ored by the lap-dogs at the top of the con­stab­u­lary. And they damn sure will not be remem­bered by the crim­i­nal sup­port­ers at the for­eign fund­ed Jamaicans for Justice. The con­sol­ers and enablers of crim­i­nal­i­ty in our coun­try. We how­ev­er will nev­er let their sac­ri­fice be for nought. We will nev­er stop men­tion­ing their names.

This mas­sive crowd most­ly clad in white , were not march­ing to be free from the ten­ta­cles of orga­nized crime. They were march­ing , show­ing their sup­port for a thug that came from a long line of thugs, who ruled their com­mu­ni­ty with iron fists, doled out largess, and took advan­tage of their depen­den­cy. They knew no bet­ter, it is with­in those con­text police offi­cers are forced to enforce Jamaican laws, with zero sup­port from their polit­i­cal boss­es. Political boss­es who them­selves have bloody hands.

Today Coke is gone but the prob­lem remains, these same peo­ple are unem­ployed and some are unem­ploy­able, every­one has to eat and sleep some­where. Unless gov­ern­ment can offer the peo­ple what ghet­to enforcers like Coke and oth­ers pro­vid­ed , the secu­ri­ty forces will for­ev­er be seen as the ene­my to be shot at and pil­lo­ried. Those with the ben­e­fit of hind­sight will argue with­out any real knowl­edge that offi­cers should take all pre­cau­tions when they are shot at not to hurt inno­cent bystanders, this is para­mount for all mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces. As a for­mer mem­ber who was on the front­lines, I am all too aware of the dif­fi­cult nature of fight­ing a bat­tle where the ene­my observes no rules yet I am restrained at the per­il of life in prison, if my split sec­ond deci­sion of life and death is the incor­rect one.

Policing inner city com­mu­ni­ties in Jamaica is com­pa­ra­ble to the slums of Rio de Jenero Brasil, Bogata Columbia, Johannesburg South Africa, and the drug car­tel con­trolled areas of Mexico. As such I must point out that in 10 years of ser­vice in the JCF and hav­ing been shot at count­less times and hav­ing been involved in hun­dreds of high risk oper­a­tions, and hav­ing being shot ‚I was nev­er issued with a bal­lis­tic vest. Officers are asked to police a peo­ple who demon­stra­bly refus­es to con­form to the rule of law. There is ample evi­dence of mem­bers of iner city com­mu­ni­ties run­ning toward offi­cers doing their jobs and open­ly defy­ing and jeer­ing offi­cers in an attempt to shield the men who shoot at offi­cers. People in these com­mu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly women are active par­tic­i­pants in the com­mis­sion of seri­ous crimes to include assaults which results in death of police offi­cers. They remove weapons and spent shells from scenes of shoot­ings cre­at­ing the impres­sion there was no shoot out .

Well mean­ing peo­ple who want to live their lives free from the scourge of crime would cer­tain­ly like a coun­try where cops do not car­ry guns.

We were at that place and what did we do? We start­ed fight­ing our police offi­cers, yes assault­ing an offi­cer in Jamaica became a sport. The same peo­ple who claim police aggres­sion nev­er opened their pie-holes to denounce those so-called (rude boys)who assault­ed our offi­cers and in many cas­es killed our offi­cers. They were silent. The same frauds were silent then as they are now when the inno­cent are slaugh­tered. There are places where police can be less aggres­sive, Jamaica is not one of those places. Olof Palme of Sweden thought as Prime Minister he was immune from vio­lence, he nev­er knew what hit him.

Olof Palme

Criminal sup­port­ing groups like JFJ is walk­ing a fine line. They sup­port mur­der­ers as a secu­ri­ty mea­sure, one day soon of the degen­er­ates who did not receive the memo will bring real­i­ty painful­ly home to these frauds. 

A Young col­league who went by the alias (fudge) was almost killed in Olympic gar­dens when an elder­ly woman grabbed him allow­ing her son to shoot him point-blank range ear­ly one morn­ing. Fudge sur­vived that bul­let, the elder­ly woman was let go by Jamaican crim­i­nal lov­ing judges, no con­se­quence. The son was not that lucky, Officers did not allow a judge to let that would be cop-killer walk free. When the mon­day morn­ing quar­ter­backs are doing with their pon­tif­i­cat­ing, talk­ing as if they know some­thing about being police offi­cer in Jamaica, let them vol­un­teer to ride with cops for a week. guar­an­teed they would piss what­ev­er they are wear­ing, and that includes the grand­stand­ing Zealots in the pub­lic defend­ers office, INDECOM, JFJ, the vil­lage lawyers in the media and whichev­er rock they live under.

These are some of the peo­ple whose car­rers it is to sec­ond guess every action of the police, though they nev­er have any­thing to say about the killing of police offi­cers. Earl Witter Public defend­er . Carolyn Gomes Criminal rights advo­cate. And Terrence Williams INDECOM commsisioner.

Has any­one noticed that the crim­i­nal sup­port­ing group JFJ nev­er make men­tion of the weapons that are recov­ered from hood­lums in the west Kingston shoot out, or any oth­er? Do you know why they make no men­tion of the weapons tak­en off the streets? Because it would dele­git­imize their argu­ments! Jamaica is a pre­ten­tious soci­ety that pre­tends we have a sta­ble democ­ra­cy. As we saw in 2010 with the killing of law enforce­ment offi­cers and the burn­ing of police station,there are ele­ments with­in the soci­ety who are quite will­ing to take on the Jamaican state. Make no mis­take they are not com­mon crim­i­nals. When some­one picks up a weapon against the state that act becomes trea­so­nous. Any coun­try seri­ous about the rule of law would pros­e­cute these offend­ers and those who sup­port them to the full extent of the law. The fact of the mat­ter is, Jamaica despite what the crim­i­nal sup­port­ers tell you, is not an ordi­nary place . Police doing their jobs there do not do so with­in the frame-work of nor­mal polic­ing, there are a series of sit­u­a­tions that makes the par­a­digm dif​fer​ent​.To include. Terrain ‚types of weapons,types of crim­i­nals, men­tal­i­ty of the peo­ple being policed.

In devel­oped coun­tries when a person/​persons decide to use the kind of force that is used by Jamaican crim­i­nals , and the weapons they use comes into play. Police use over­whelm­ing force, and the first shot they get that threat is neu­tral­ized. Those who pon­tif­i­cate as if the know some­thing , do not know what they are talk­ing about. It’s always easy to sit and Monday-morn­ing quar­ter back , some­thing Jamaicans are very good at doing. Everyone has an opin­ion, irre­spec­tive of their lack of knowl­edge, they are will­ing to offer an opin­ion notwithstanding.

Having left the JCF I won­dered, “why did I risk my life to serve”? Then I con­soled myself “I did not serve because I loved the ingrates, I served because I love my coun­try”. We will nev­er sur­ren­der to crim­i­nal thugs or their sup­port­ers. If the bat­tle needs to be ele­vat­ed to anoth­er lev­el , then that may be what peo­ple will have to do. The peo­ple of Columbia took back their coun­try, we will take back our country.

SUBMITTED HERE FOR YOUR INFORMATION IS THE MOST RECENT NARCOTICS CONTROL STRATEGY REPORT RELEASED TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS:

The 2012 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) has raised grave wor­ries about Jamaica’s progress in drug fighting.
The report was sub­mit­ted today to the United States Congress.
The report notes that the Commissioner of Police faces inter­nal, judi­cial, and polit­i­cal road­blocks that are hin­der­ing reforms man­dat­ed by Jamaica’s 2007 Police Strategic Review Implementation Plan.
But the doc­u­ment notes that the Commissioner has tak­en a strong pub­lic stance against cor­rup­tion, and is con­tin­u­ing to imple­ment and expand the plan.
It also claims that high-pro­file orga­nized crime gangs con­tin­ued to suc­cess­ful­ly oper­ate with­in Jamaica and gang lead­ers are often afford­ed com­mu­ni­ty and, in some cas­es, police protection.
The INCSR reviews con­di­tions in the major illic­it drug-pro­duc­ing coun­tries, the major drug-tran­sit coun­tries, and the major source coun­tries for pre­cur­sor chem­i­cals used in the pro­duc­tion of illic­it nar­cotics. In addi­tion, the INCSR dis­cuss­es con­di­tions in the major mon­ey-laun­der­ing countries.
This is the 29^th edi­tion of the annu­al report to Congress and cov­ers the cal­en­dar year 2011.
See full report on Jamaica below.
A. Introduction
Jamaica con­tin­ues to be the largest Caribbean sup­pli­er of mar­i­jua­na to the United States. Although cocaine and syn­thet­ic drugs are not pro­duced local­ly, Jamaica is a tran­sit point for drugs traf­ficked from South America to North America. Drug pro­duc­tion and traf­fick­ing are both enabled and accom­pa­nied by orga­nized crime, domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al gang activ­i­ty, and police and gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion. The gun trade for illic­it drugs exac­er­bates the prob­lem as undoc­u­ment­ed hand­guns are moved into the coun­try in exchange for drugs.
Drugs flow into, through and from Jamaica in small boats and large ves­sels (both inside the ves­sel and in par­a­site con­tain­ers attached to the hull), as con­tra­band car­ried by ship and air­craft pas­sen­gers, with­in ship­ping con­tain­ers, and to a lim­it­ed degree by pri­vate air­craft. Most drugs leav­ing Jamaica are bound for North America. However, some amounts of mar­i­jua­na and cocaine are smug­gled from Jamaica into England, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, either using per­son­al couri­ers, car­go on com­mer­cial air­craft, or by insert­ing the drugs into ship­ping con­tain­ers that pass through Kingston’s busy con­tain­er ter­mi­nal and con­tin­ue onto Europe.
Factors that con­tribute to drug traf­fick­ing are the country’s con­ve­nient posi­tion as a point for nar­cotics being traf­ficked from Latin America; its lengthy, rugged and dif­fi­cult-to-patrol coast­line; a high vol­ume of tourist trav­el by indi­vid­u­als and pri­vate boats; its sta­tus as a major trans­ship­ment point for ship­ping con­tain­ers between Asia, Latin America, Europe and Africa; and, a strug­gling econ­o­my that encour­ages cul­ti­va­tion of mar­i­jua­na in remote swamps and moun­tain areas.
Law enforce­ment author­i­ties are mod­er­ate­ly effec­tive in com­bat­ing illic­it traf­fick­ing with com­pe­tent and ded­i­cat­ed lead­er­ship, but their efforts are under­cut by a slow and mar­gin­al­ly effec­tive crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, a lack of suf­fi­cient resources, and cor­rup­tion. Jamaican law stip­u­lates that pos­ses­sion or use of cocaine; hero­in, mar­i­jua­na, and ecsta­sy are ille­gal and sub­ject to crim­i­nal and civ­il penal­ties. The ille­git­i­mate pos­ses­sion of pre­cur­sor chem­i­cals is also pro­hib­it­ed by law.
Jamaica is a sig­na­to­ry to the 1988 UN Drug Convention.
B. Drug Control Accomplishments, Policies, and Trends
1. Institutional Development
Coöperation remains strong between the Governments of Jamaica and the United States in an effort to curb nar­cotics and relat­ed transna­tion­al crime. The United States’ pri­ma­ry part­ners are the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), Jamaica Customs, and the Ministry of Finance’s Financial Investigation Division.
The Jamaican gov­ern­ment and the United States have a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) that assists in evi­dence shar­ing. Both gov­ern­ments have a rec­i­p­ro­cal asset shar­ing agree­ment and a bilat­er­al law enforce­ment agree­ment gov­ern­ing coöper­a­tion to stop the mar­itime flow of ille­gal drugs. Jamaica is a par­ty to the Inter-American Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, the 1961 UN Single Convention as amend­ed by the 1972 Protocol, the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances, the 1988 UN Drug Convention, the 1996 Inter-American Convention Against Corruption, the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and its three pro­to­cols, and the UN Convention Against Corruption. The Jamaican gov­ern­ment has signed, but has not rat­i­fied, the Caribbean Regional Maritime Counterdrug Agreement.
The 1991 extra­di­tion treaty between the United States and Jamaica is active­ly and suc­cess­ful­ly used by the United States to extra­dite sus­pect­ed crim­i­nals from Jamaica. Extradition requests are nor­mal­ly processed in a rou­tine and effi­cient man­ner by Jamaican polit­i­cal and judi­cial authorities.
Realizing that fight­ing gangs, drugs, and transna­tion­al crime begins at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el, the JCF increased com­mu­ni­ty-based polic­ing (CBP) efforts with U.S. sup­port. CBP is now the offi­cial pol­i­cy of the JCF and is incor­po­rat­ed into pre-ser­vice train­ing for all police recruits. The CBP pro­gram spread from three pilot com­mu­ni­ties in 2008 to 360 com­mu­ni­ties in 2011. Of the JCF’s 8,444 front line offi­cers, 5,609 received train­ing in CBP prac­tices with the remain­der sched­uled for train­ing. Civilian accep­tance of CBP is facil­i­tat­ed through pro­grams such as a safe schools pro­gram and youth civic engagement.
The Commissioner of Police faces inter­nal, judi­cial, and polit­i­cal road­blocks that hin­der reforms man­dat­ed by Jamaica’s 2007 Police Strategic Review Implementation Plan. The Commissioner has tak­en a strong pub­lic stance against cor­rup­tion, is con­tin­u­ing to imple­ment and expand the plan, and has made steady progress toward insti­tu­tion­al reform. However, it is unclear whether the Commissioner will secure con­tin­ued leg­isla­tive and exec­u­tive sup­port, both in fund­ing and polit­i­cal back­ing, to make sig­nif­i­cant and endur­ing progress in com­bat­ing police cor­rup­tion and trans­form­ing the institution.
2. Supply Reduction
Marijuana is grown in all four­teen parish­es of Jamaica. An esti­mat­ed 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of mar­i­jua­na is gen­er­al­ly found in areas inac­ces­si­ble to vehic­u­lar traf­fic on small plots in moun­tain­ous areas and along the trib­u­taries of the Black River in Saint Elizabeth parish. The JCF and JDF employ teams of civil­ian cut­ters to cut grow­ing plants and who are escort­ed by the mil­i­tary or police. Teams seize seedlings and cured mar­i­jua­na and burn them in the field. Jamaican law pro­hibits the use of her­bi­cides, and only man­u­al erad­i­ca­tion is conducted.
Eradication of mar­i­jua­na (cannabis, seedlings, seeds, and nurs­eries) increased from 2010: 707 hectares of cannabis were erad­i­cat­ed; 1,900,630 seedlings destroyed and 480 kilos of seeds destroyed in 2011 when com­pared to 447 hectares, 956,300 seedlings and 255 kilos of seeds in 2010. Additional progress in erad­i­ca­tion efforts is hin­dered by the Jamaican government’s fis­cal con­straints and the unavail­abil­i­ty of JDF air­craft to locate mar­i­jua­na fields and trans­port per­son­nel to the remote areas where the crops are grown.
Jamaica pro­hibits the man­u­fac­ture, sale, trans­port, and pos­ses­sion of ecsta­sy, metham­phet­a­mine, and reg­u­lates the pre­cur­sor chem­i­cals used to pro­duce them. Jamaica does not pro­duce pre­cur­sor chem­i­cals or oth­er chem­i­cal sub­stances and, relies on coun­tries export­ing goods to con­form to inter­na­tion­al stan­dards gov­ern­ing export ver­i­fi­ca­tion. The impor­ta­tion and sale of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts and chem­i­cal sub­stances are reg­u­lat­ed and rein­forced with fines or impris­on­ment. Other con­trols exist to mon­i­tor the usage of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts and chem­i­cal sub­stances includ­ing reg­is­ter con­trols, inspec­tions, and audits.
Smugglers con­tin­ued to use mar­itime ship­ping con­tain­ers, ships, small boats, air­craft and couri­ers to move drugs from and through Jamaica to the United States. Seizures of mar­i­jua­na-relat­ed prod­ucts improved in 2011, with 47,691 kilos of cannabis and 170 kilos of hash oil in 2011, com­pared to 39,291 kilos and 121 kilos in 2010, respec­tive­ly, although hashish decreased to 9 kilos in 2011 from 13 in 2010. Seizures of cocaine increased to 552 kilos in 2011 from 176 kilos in 2010, though crack cocaine dropped to 1.3 kilos in 2011 from 5.98 in 2010.
High- pro­file orga­nized crime gangs con­tin­ued to suc­cess­ful­ly oper­ate with­in Jamaica. Gang lead­ers are often afford­ed com­mu­ni­ty and, in some cas­es, police pro­tec­tion. Nevertheless, drug-relat­ed arrests increased to 20,216 in 2011, com­pared to 10,255 in 2010.
3. Drug Abuse Awareness, Demand Reduction, and Treatment
The JCF reports that mar­i­jua­na is used by nine per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion, mak­ing it the most abused illic­it drug among Jamaicans, while cocaine abuse reached a plateau of less than 0.1 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion over the last 10 years. There is evi­dence that new drugs, such as hero­in and ecsta­sy, entered the Jamaican domes­tic mar­ket in small amounts.
To com­bat the use of illic­it drugs, the Ministry of Health’s National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA) was estab­lished by statute in 1982. NCDA field offi­cers pro­vide sup­port to the pri­ma­ry care sys­tem through the assess­ment of sub­stance abusers in the men­tal health sys­tem. Also, the Jamaican government’s National Health Fund (NHF) estab­lished and fund­ed 18 com­mu­ni­ty med­ical clin­ics across the island, pri­mar­i­ly through faith- based insti­tu­tions, that pro­vide pri­ma­ry treat­ment ser­vices with refer­rals to hos­pi­tals, clin­ics, physi­cians, psy­chol­o­gists, and psy­chi­a­trists. The clin­ics pro­vide drug-relat­ed coun­sel­ing and trau­ma services.
The Jamaican gov­ern­ment oper­ates one detox­i­fi­ca­tion cen­ter locat­ed at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston. In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Organization of American States Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), Jamaica offers a uni­ver­si­ty-lev­el cer­tifi­cate pro­gram in drug addic­tion and drug pre­ven­tion. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) works direct­ly with the Jamaican gov­ern­ment and NGOs on demand reduc­tion; how­ev­er, due to lim­it­ed resources, these pro­grams have lit­tle impact.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) reg­u­lates phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, includ­ing the impor­ta­tion of pseu­doephedrine, both in pow­der and final prod­uct forms. The NCDA, the Pharmacy Council, and the MOH work to expand aware­ness among health pro­fes­sion­als about the poten­tial dan­ger of pseu­doephedrine and ephedrine when they are divert­ed to pro­duce metham­phet­a­mine. The NCDA col­lab­o­rates with oth­er non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions to pro­vide non-res­i­den­tial drug coun­sel­ing services.
4. Corruption
As a mat­ter of pol­i­cy, the Jamaican gov­ern­ment does not encour­age or facil­i­tate ille­gal activ­i­ty asso­ci­at­ed with drug traf­fick­ing; nor are any senior Jamaican offi­cials known to engage in such activ­i­ty. Nevertheless, cor­rup­tion of pub­lic offi­cials con­tin­ues to be a major con­cern to the Jamaican and U.S. gov­ern­ments as well as most Jamaicans. The law penal­izes offi­cial cor­rup­tion; how­ev­er, cor­rup­tion is entrenched, wide­spread, and com­pound­ed by a judi­cial sys­tem that is poor­ly equipped to han­dle com­plex crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions in a time­ly manner.
Corruption under­mines efforts against drug and oth­er major crimes and is a major fac­tor in allow­ing the pas­sage of drugs and drug pro­ceeds through Jamaica. An improv­ing anti-cor­rup­tion stance with­in Jamaican cus­toms enforce­ment, the JCF, the Jamaica Tax Administration, and the Office of the Contractor General has shown encour­ag­ing signs. Additionally, the USAID-sup­port­ed National Integrity Action Forum helped focus increased pub­lic and gov­ern­ment atten­tion on anti-cor­rup­tion reforms.
The Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) of the JCF has shown suc­cess in iden­ti­fy­ing and remov­ing offi­cers engaged in cor­rup­tion. Since the ACB’s incep­tion in 2008, 319 JCF per­son­nel have been dis­missed for uneth­i­cal or cor­rupt behav­ior, with 69 of those dis­missed in 2011. Another 44 offi­cers faced crim­i­nal cor­rup­tion charges dur­ing the year. The JCF’s suc­cess is due part­ly to mech­a­nisms that allow it to dis­miss cor­rupt or uneth­i­cal offi­cers when evi­dence is insuf­fi­cient to jus­ti­fy crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. For exam­ple, the JCF requires high lev­el police offi­cers to sign employ­ment con­tracts that improve account­abil­i­ty and facil­i­tate speedy dis­missal for cor­rupt or uneth­i­cal behav­ior. Vetting and a poly­graph exam­i­na­tion are also required for pro­mo­tions into key positions.
The JDF has been effec­tive in iden­ti­fy­ing and respond­ing to cor­rup­tion with­in its ranks. The JDF, while not immune from cor­rup­tion, takes swift dis­ci­pli­nary action when war­rant­ed in fur­ther­ance of its zero tol­er­ance policy.
A bill cre­at­ing an Anti-Corruption Special Prosecutor is being con­sid­ered by Parliament, but no action is expect­ed soon. Efforts by leg­is­la­tors from both polit­i­cal par­ties to dilute the effec­tive­ness of the mea­sure threat­en its prospec­tive impact on curb­ing gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion. There has not been leg­isla­tive action to cre­ate a National Anti-cor­rup­tion Agency, which is required by the Inter-American Convention against Corruption to which Jamaica is a signatory.
C. National Goals, Bilateral Coöperation, and U.S. Policy Initiatives Supporting Jamaica’s trans­for­ma­tion into a more secure, demo­c­ra­t­ic, and pros­per­ous part­ner rep­re­sents a major U.S. pol­i­cy goal. Narcotics traf­fick­ing, cor­rup­tion, and crime under­mine the rule of law, demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance, eco­nom­ic growth, and the qual­i­ty of life for all Jamaicans. In response, the United States is work­ing to enhance the effec­tive­ness and capac­i­ty of Jamaica’s law enforce­ment and crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. Within the fab­ric of all U.S. aid to Jamaica, beyond that relat­ing only to law enforce­ment and jus­tice, is the acknowl­edge­ment that suc­cess depends on a com­pre­hen­sive approach that rec­og­nizes the link between drugs, gangs, orga­nized crime, pover­ty, unem­ploy­ment, lack of edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties and gov­ern­ment corruption.
The U.S. sup­port to com­bat nar­cotics pro­duc­tion and traf­fick­ing in Jamaica includes train­ing, equip­ment and logis­ti­cal assis­tance to the JCF and JDF. For exam­ple, fund­ing sup­ports con­tin­ued mar­i­jua­na erad­i­ca­tion oper­a­tions, logis­ti­cal sup­port to the JDF Coast Guard and JCF Marine Division for inter­dic­tion of nar­cotics traf­fick­ing in coastal waters, and enhance­ment of bor­der secu­ri­ty at air and sea ports for Jamaica Customs. Additional sup­port focus­es on spe­cial­ized JCF units that tar­get nar­cotics and gangs, on JCF crime scene inves­tiga­tive and foren­sic analy­sis capac­i­ty, and on train­ing for pros­e­cu­tors involved in pros­e­cut­ing nar­cotics, cor­rup­tion and finan­cial crimes. Indirect sup­port for coun­ternar­cotics efforts is fur­nished through the devel­op­ment of effec­tive com­mu­ni­ty-police rela­tions, improve­ment of JCF train­ing facil­i­ties, and anti-cor­rup­tion ini­tia­tives with­in the JCF, plus edu­ca­tion and work­force devel­op­ment pro­grams tar­get­ing at-risk youth who are sus­cep­ti­ble to nar­cotics and gang influence.
The pri­ma­ry source of U.S. fund­ing in sup­port of law enforce­ment and jus­tice reform is through the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI), which con­tains both bilat­er­al and region­al fund­ing mech­a­nisms. The pro­gram­ming of region­al funds is guid­ed by tech­ni­cal work­ing groups com­prised of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from par­tic­i­pat­ing Caribbean coun­tries. The region­al com­po­nent of CBSI is instru­men­tal in achiev­ing U.S. goals in Jamaica because the chal­lenges it faces are large­ly shared by Caribbean neighbors.
D. Conclusion
Through essen­tial­ly sol­id demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions and the efforts of strong lead­ers with­in the gov­ern­ment, Jamaica is mak­ing slow, but steady progress in com­bat­ing the crim­i­nal scourges that plague the country’s polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and social well-being, name­ly the illic­it traf­fick­ing of nar­cotics and firearms, vio­lent crime, cor­rup­tion, gangs and orga­nized crime. Carefully tar­get­ed U.S. sup­port, com­bined with efforts from oth­er inter­na­tion­al part­ners – in par­tic­u­lar Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union – is help­ing to make a dif­fer­ence in that battle.
Success sto­ries can be found in JCF efforts to root out cor­rup­tion through its ACB, by its ini­tia­tive to inoc­u­late com­mu­ni­ties from crime and gang influ­ence using com­mu­ni­ty ‑based polic­ing, and with spe­cial­ized JCF vet­ted units attack­ing nar­cotics and gangs. Successes are also found with­in the offices of INDECOM, the Financial Investigation Division and the Contractor General, where com­pe­tent, ded­i­cat­ed and vet­ted per­son­nel are strug­gling with lim­it­ed resources to turn the tide against police killings, finan­cial crime and gov­ern­ment corruption.
Despite encour­ag­ing signs with­in Jamaica’s law enforce­ment agen­cies, progress is less evi­dent with­in Jamaica’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem as a whole. The judi­cial branch remains ill-equipped to han­dle a large num­ber of crim­i­nal cas­es and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al effi­ca­cy is also lack­ing. As a result, there are a large num­ber of gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion cas­es for await­ing pros­e­cu­tion, and con­vic­tions are few as the cas­es may be put off for years with­out result.
Future U.S. efforts should con­tin­ue to sus­tain the momen­tum gained with­in Jamaica’s law enforce­ment agen­cies, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the areas of mar­itime secu­ri­ty, cor­rup­tion, gangs and orga­nized crime. The United States should focus enhanced sup­port and pres­sure for demon­stra­ble progress by pros­e­cu­tors and the courts in mov­ing crim­i­nal sus­pects through the crim­i­nal jus­tice system.