WHAT IS THE STRATEGY FOR SMASHING JAMAICA’S CRIMINAL GANGS ?

At the start of this year Police Commissioner Owen Ellington declared to the Country that he would be demand­ing from Divisional Commanders their strat­e­gy to com­plete­ly dis­man­tle Jamaica’s Criminal Gangs.The Police argue that there are sev­er­al dozen Criminal Gangs oper­at­ing across the Island.Some Non Governmental Organizations dis­pute those claims, argu­ing that some of the group­ings of peo­ple the Police call gangs are just guys hang­ing out on the corners.

Horace Levy has been a senior lec­tur­er and research fel­low at the University of the West Indies since 1998. His 2009 mono­graph Killing Streets and Community Revival is based both on his research and his active involve­ment since 2002 in the Peace Management Initiative. (AAP Home > Department of City & Regional Planning).The argu­ments made by mis­ter Levy is based on his asso­ci­a­tion with the orga­ni­za­tion he helps to lead, the PMI.

Having spent a decade polic­ing the inner cities and gar­risons of Jamaica ‚I must say with all due respect to Mister Levy and the PMI, despite the valu­able work they do, I am more inclined to go with the assess­ment of the Police.The work of the PMI though invalu­able, is dif­fer­ent from the role of the police . Operatives of the PMI are seen in these com­mu­ni­ties in a dif­fer­ent light than the way the police is viewed.

Arguing that guys on the cor­ner who behave in a civ­il way around PMI oper­a­tives are some­how divorced from turf-defense, extor­tion, and the com­mis­sion of oth­er crimes, shows a lack of under­stand­ing of how crim­i­nals oper­ate. It’s naïveté, or much worse. That argu­ment is sim­i­lar to that of par­ents whom have done their best to raise a child, would swear on the Bible that the child nev­er indulges in bad behav­ior, until that child is con­vict­ed of crim­i­nal wrong doing. We can do our best to raise our kids but we should nev­er swear on their honesty.

Back to com­mis­sion­er Ellington:

On hear­ing the announce­ment from the Commissioner my imme­di­ate incli­na­tion was to won­der how many Commanders had train­ing or under­stand­ing how to exe­cute the man­date giv­en by their boss? I am not say­ing that the Commanders, some of whom are sea­soned street cops can­not effec­tive­ly erad­i­cate the gangs with­in their sphere of com­mand. What I do know as a mat­ter of fact is that some of them have no clue, no will, and oth­ers are timid lead­ers who had great­ness thrust upon them. If we are to erad­i­cate the mon­ster of gang vio­lence there must be effec­tive leg­is­la­tion that pre­cedes the police effort. The police com­mis­sion­er , well-inten­tioned though he is, is ask­ing his com­man­ders to do some­thing that can­not be achieved under the present sys­tem. If the Authorities are seri­ous the thing to do is look over­seas at mod­els which work. A good place to start is the American Rico Statute. RICO, is a United States fed­er­al law that pro­vides for extend­ed crim­i­nal penal­ties and a civ­il cause of action for acts per­formed as part of an ongo­ing crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tion.

In 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1961 – 1968. At the time, Congress’ goal was to elim­i­nate the ill-affects of orga­nized crime on the nation’s econ­o­my. To put it blunt­ly, RICO was intend­ed to destroy the Mafia,it is applied to indi­vid­u­als, busi­ness­es, polit­i­cal protest groups, and ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions. In short, a RICO claim can arise in almost any con­text. source(RicoAct.com llc)RICO address­es long-term, not one-shot, crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. Not only must a RICO claim be based upon crim­i­nal activ­i­ty, but the crim­i­nal acts must con­sti­tute a “pat­tern” of crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. A sin­gle crim­i­nal act, short-term crim­i­nal con­duct, or crim­i­nal actions that bear no rela­tion­ship to each oth­er will not give rise to a RICO claim. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that crim­i­nal actions con­sti­tute a “pat­tern” only if they are relat­ed and con­tin­u­ous. In order to be “relat­ed,” the crim­i­nal acts must involve the same vic­tims, have the same meth­ods of com­mis­sion, involve the same par­tic­i­pants, or be relat­ed in some oth­er fash­ion. A pat­tern may be suf­fi­cient­ly con­tin­u­ous if the crim­i­nal actions occurred over a sub­stan­tial peri­od of time or posed a threat of indef­i­nite dura­tion. The for­mer pat­terns are referred to as closed-end­ed pat­terns; the lat­ter pat­terns are referred to as open-end­ed pat­terns. Accordingly, even if you have been injured by a crim­i­nal act, you will not have a RICO claim unless that crim­i­nal act is part of a larg­er pat­tern of crim­i­nal activ­i­ty.source(RicoAct.com llc).

The Americans rec­og­nized they had a prob­lem and they act­ed deci­sive­ly to ensure that the coun­try would not bow to criminals.This law has more than enough detrac­tors , thats fine, that is how a democ­ra­cy work ‚but the vast major­i­ty of Americans will argue that the law serves the pur­pose for which it was intend­ed. American cities, and small com­mu­ni­ties are not con­trolled by heav­i­ly armed, maraud­ing, blood thirsty gang­sters with law-enforce­ment in retreat.

The JCF can­not not get the nec­es­sary sup­port it needs from Government to refrain from polit­i­cal games­man­ship with National Security. Declare a State Of Public Emergency. Give the secu­ri­ty forces the room they need­ed, to solid­i­fy and hold the grounds they cleared. This is a seri­ous indict­ment on the Government.! The Police for its part is still mired in alle­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion. Too many of its mem­bers alleged to be involved in crim­i­nal behav­ior. There are also loud accu­sa­tions that some offi­cers are them­selves close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with some of the lead­ing crim­i­nal gangs in the coun­try. The two lead­ing gangs the One Order an alleged JLP proxy and the Klans man a PNP affil­i­ate are at the fore­front of crim­i­nal activ­i­ty, from my sources on the ground in the old cap­i­tal of Spanish Town and it’s envi­rons, over the last sev­er­al years crime in and around Spanish Town has been out of con­trol, even dur­ing the days of for­mer no-non­sense crime fight­ers like Kelso Smalls and oth­ers, Spanish Town’s crim­i­nals had shown a cer­tain tenac­i­ty and deter­mi­na­tion, that required hard-nosed polic­ing, from Sufferers heights, to De la Vega City, from Thawes Pen to Brunswick Avenue, and all places in between crime and Political vio­lence was left unchecked, and in many instances sup­port­ed by politicians.

As a mem­ber of the Rangers Squad out of the Mobile Reserve and lat­er serv­ing at the Constant Spring CIB I am acute­ly aware of what it takes to ensure that the streets are con­trolled by the rule of law. The JCF through favoritism, Political affil­i­a­tion, and just plain incom­pe­tence has caused a once well-regard­ed Agency to be reduced to one of ridicule and shame. Through its inef­fec­tive devel­op­ment of its great­est asset, the peo­ple who vol­un­teer , it has caused the Department to expe­ri­ence one of the high­est rate of attri­tion of any pub­lic body in the Country.

The Jamaican peo­ple have lost count­less mil­lions of tax Dollars to attri­tion. They saw no returns on their invest­ment. Many mem­bers decid­ed not to get caught up in a no win sit­u­a­tion and have left., Some are unable to leave but would at a momen­t’s notice were they giv­en the chance. The solu­tion is not a sim­ple one ‚but one that requires will,vision, and know-how, the Jamaican peo­ple have to avail them­selves to the fact that call­ing the Authorities and report­ing crim­i­nal activ­i­ty [snitch­ing] is in their best Interest. They must under­stand that an atmos­phere of no snitch­ing is fer­tile soil for crim­i­nal­i­ty to flour­ish. They must real­ize that as cit­i­zens with rights, they have respon­si­bil­i­ties to act with cir­cum­spec­tion and responsibility.They must deter­mine to sac­ri­fice for coun­try, resist­ing the instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion of now. [eat a food men­tal­i­ty] .

They must endeav­or to stop cor­rupt­ing pub­lic offi­cials, and they must uni­fy around the com­mon cause of crime erad­i­ca­tion. It is impos­si­ble to gauge how many killers are walk­ing the streets and by-ways of Jamaica, what is cer­tain is that there are hun­dreds pos­si­bly thou­sands. many young men walk­ing the streets have slaugh­tered dozens of peo­ple , raped and killed many women, girls and lit­tle boys, and will nev­er be brought before a Jamaican court to account for any of those crimes.

There are count­less oth­ers whom are involved in mur­der for hire. Through mur­der for hire , they have oth­ers do their killing for them, even in the rare case of an inves­ti­ga­tion they are nev­er named. Subsequently they con­tin­ue to pay oth­ers to exter­mi­nate peo­ple as they see fit.

I get real mad when some for­eign group or indi­vid­ual goes to my coun­try and walk around with some­one from a depressed com­mu­ni­ty , ask a few ques­tions, then pro­ceed to go back to their coun­try and write sto­ries as if they under­stand some­thing about Jamaican crim­i­nal­i­ty . I am equal­ly pissed about their sur­ro­gates like those with­in the crim­i­nal sup­port­ing group Jamaicans for jus­tice. It’s exec­u­tive direc­tor who have no under­stand­ing of what obtains in ghet­tos , oth­er than what they are told ‚or from watch­ing tele­vi­sion. They col­lect state­ments from crim­i­nals or their fam­i­ly mem­bers run with it to their for­eign han­dlers who pro­ceed to slan­der the secu­ri­ty forces and the coun­try. The groups that sup­pos­ed­ly care about human rights are nev­er con­cerned , nev­er do they talk about the col­lec­tive harm and trau­ma that is being vis­it­ed on the Nation as a result of the sick­en­ing slaugh­ter of our inno­cent broth­ers and sis­ters, large­ly by drug and sex crazed demons parad­ing as men. Demons that have no souls, vam­pires if you will, who pride them­selves in the ghoul­ish slaugh­ter of the innocent.

Those are the peo­ple whose rights are guar­an­teed in Jamaica, our Law Enforcement Officials are required to tip toe around these mur­der­ing low lives. Criminal rights groups are heav­i­ly involved in the run­ning of the coun­try’s secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus. Criminals are like cock­roaches , shine a light they will scam­per for cover,keep the light on and they stay away, those who dare return face the fury of the roach spray !!!!