SOEs and criminal masterminds
IN AN energetic and emotive defence last week of his Government’s use of states of public emergency (SOE) as a crime-fighting tool, Prime Minister Andrew Holness insisted that they worked not because of any mass detention of citizens or any abuse of their rights.
In fact, Mr Holness reported that when the last set of SOEs were lifted ahead of last September’s general election – and before the Supreme Court ruled the Emergency Powers Act, in its current form, to be unconstitutional – “only” 200 Jamaicans remained in detention. Large-scale detentions, the PM insisted, were only in the early weeks of states of public emergency, which were utilised as “a kind of precision intervention” to disrupt organised criminal activity.
This newspaper is not intending to dispute the prime minister’s analysis of the effectiveness of SOEs or what element of them accounts for the successes highlighted by Mr Holness – the enhanced powers to search and detain people or the deterrent effect of large numbers of police and soldiers deployed in communities that are placed under the states of emergency. For with respect to the latter, no special power is required by the police chief, who has absolute responsibility for the day-today management of the constabulary in determining the deployment of its members. If the police need the assistance and support of the military, that is a policy matter to be addressed through a request to the minister.
OBVIOUS GAPS
The issue about which there were obvious gaps in the prime minister’s argument, and about which we crave further explanation and deeper analysis, is the identity of the criminal masterminds who manipulate “poor, uneducated youngsters” in inner-city areas and pull the strings on crime in these communities and why they appear never to be apprehended, prosecuted, or convicted. Or why they may have escaped the “precision interventions ”of the states of emergency.
It is a long-held article of faith that poor, marginalised, and mostly unsophisticated young men in Jamaica’s crime-prone communities could hardly afford the guns they use, as was repeated by Mr Holness. They are “given” guns by “leaders” who organise criminal enterprises that engage in robberies, extortion, contract killing and drug smuggling.
Said Mr Holness:“... What you have now is this kind of activity, which has leadership – this is not random ... . And these leaders sit down and they watch police movement ... and they organise their criminal army to attack you.”
The states of emergency, such as the 2010 military operation in west Kingston that routed Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke’s private militia, Mr Holness argued, disrupt the criminal networks not only in the specific areas where they are declared, but across the island. The upshot: a drop in murders and other serious crimes. Critics, however, insist that such declines are not sustained as the psychological impact from the operation recedes. Mr Holness’ explanation for the fall in crime during periods of states of emergency is this:“... Those persons in criminal leadership had to include in their planning and decisionmaking ,‘ What if the police come tome ?’ So they hold off .”
THREE CRITICAL IMPLICATIONS
There seem to be at least three critical implications from the prime minister’s observations. First, it appears that the authorities know who those criminal leaders are. Second, they have not, by and large, held the “precision interventions” in the communities. Rather, the public is not told of criminal masterminds being held. Most of the people who end up in detention are the dysfunctional young men identified by the prime minister who discover power with guns. Third, the criminal leaders, it appears, take strategic decisions to “hold off” during the period of large and active deployment of security forces in the communities.
Which begs the question of why, and how, these criminal masterminds continue to evade the investigative and prosecutorial capacity of the security forces. You would expect that they would be among the first people to be called upon during the “precision interventions” by the security forces, essentially decapitating their criminal enterprises.
The PM may be right that using the extreme tool of states of emergency may be necessary to fight crime and that the rights of citizens have not been violated in the exercise of these powers. It, however, seems that something else is required to find, prosecute, and jail the criminal masterminds. Not merely holding some in lock-ups – without charge.