Go after the money
IT MIGHT be a stunt thing but I have to agree with Bunting. To get to the crime, Orville we cut out Taylor the slime and surely, we’ll find something.
At St George’s, I had a Chinese friend whose jokes were as corny as the bread we gulped wrapped around piping hot patties, as nicely flavoured as the more exotic sow bow. One day he finally cracked me up though, by telling me that he was the only one in the class whose family lived above their means and never ran into bankruptcy. Of course, their residence was the second floor above their commercial establishment; but it was funny.
Yet, the crux of the joke was that there were individuals and families, who even with my teenage mind seemed to be living too well based on their income. Full of naivete I went into the personnel department of a large ministry, and the discord between what some very junior or middle-level civil servants were earning and their lifestyles hit me in the stomach like a bully who stole my lunch money.
Something was inherently wrong, even without the knowledge from sociology.
Thus, by the time I learned about anomie and Robert Merton’s theory of deviance, a full year after my entrée in the service, it all came together. Then came the drugs culture; it wasn’t right. People were cheating the system and living large, making a mockery of the Jamaican dream of going to school, getting an education and breaking the cycle of poverty.
No, it is not ‘grudgefulness’, the danger to our social order is twofold. First of all, the criminal lifestyle can easily become the next exemplar for the vulnerable youth, who can get so irretrievable that successive exasperated administrations have called on gangsters and murderers to reach them. ‘Thugs’ become the next heroes for our boys. It is a very dangerous thing, when a society emphasises the ends but downplays the means.
SACRIFICED OUR FUTURE
We lost the imagination of our youth in the 1970s, when the society failed to inspire proper leadership and created area dons. Politicians sacrificed our future on the altar of a pagan god called politics and created a breed of illegitimate leaders. Instead of the schoolteacher and nurse reprising their traditional roles as home-grown and home-based leaders, these enforcers, with deep connections and sometimes pockets with their political leadership, became demi-gods and communities morphed into garrisons. In short order, adults who were normally able to scold and mould the village children according to the African adage were supplanted by the dons and political parties.
The seeds having been sown, the dons started making serious money, as North America’s appetite for local genetically modified weed increased. Indeed, even Rastafari youth failed to recognise that this sinsemilla, which means ‘seedless’, was not ‘ital’, because natural herbs have seeds. With money to ‘floss’, even the bottom-ranking drug dealer became minor icons. Then, with the guns left over from the political ‘civil war’ of the 1970s and 1980s, the next generation found a lucrative hunting ground among locals. Crime began to pay.
It also did not help that some politicians were enrichening themselves, pastors were becoming Dives, living off tithes, despite no biblical foundation for it, and doing other nasty stuff. True, we know that police officers and other public servants ‘ate food’ when possible. However, an entire generation of lawyers benefited from the filthy lucre, thus putting the same anomic pressure on their decent peers, many of whom, being human, succumbed to crookery and thievery themselves.
From a purely economic standpoint, dirty money is perilous. Increased money supply in an economy, that is not growing from production of goods and services, distorts local prices and thus actually worsens the condition of the poorest. Therefore, the danger of corruption money is that it shakes the very foundation of the economy. Keeping dirty money out of the mainstream economy will ultimately make the overall cost of living less expensive for all.
FOLLOW THE MONEY
For that reason, the best strategy is to follow the money and it will lead you to the criminal. Never mind who wails; big fish will be caught. Our Proceeds of Crime Act places major burdens on our banks and lawyers to avoid processing illegal gains. However, while they both have to do their due diligence regarding clients’ money, lawyers are somehow indemnified when their criminally charged customers, without verifiable legal incomes, unexplainedly find their fees. Indeed, even the courts should ascertain the source before collecting fines.
To avoid pushing the activities underground all individuals who are in danger of losing their freedom, including the scores of police officers before the court, must have access to legal aid. Therefore, the worn-out excuses by attorneys, whose consciences are in the same shape as COVID-19 infected lungs, will end.
As we watch the current trial of the reputed members of the One Don Clansman gang, let us remember that the Americans never convicted Al Capone for the myriad murders, robberies and extortion his gang was believed to have committed. He was found guilty of tax evasion, because he could not have filed without declaring the illicit income.
So yes, Mr Bunting, that’s where we must do our hunting.