Judge’s observation serious
THE USUAL reflex of Jamaica’s police force is to bristle at any form of criticism, no matter how well-intentioned.
That, hopefully, won’t be the response to Justice Bertram Morrison’s sensible advice to cops this week that roughhouse tactics isn’t a worthy investigative technique and ought to have no place in their repertoire. Indeed, as Justice Morrison noted, such behaviour is an abuse of people’s human rights.
Physical and/or emotional violence against citizens is not only contrary to the constabulary’s mission of to ‘serve and protect’, but undermines their efforts to win the support and trust of communities. Which is to the advantage of criminals.
Justice Morrison’s anti-violence admonition came during his summation in the murder case of Gregory Roberts, who was found guilty of the 2017 murder of a 15-year-old St James schoolgirl, Shineka Gray.
During the hearing, the judge compelled a female, who had failed to show as a prosecution witness, to come to court to provide evidence, independent of either side.
The woman claimed that she was beaten by investigating officers. The judge, though, alerted the jury to the fact that the woman didn’t file a complaint with the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), the body that investigates claims of abuse or the use of excessive force against the security forces.
Said Justice Morrison: “I need to comment here because the police, in conducting their investigations, cannot abuse a person’s human rights. You are to treat people civilly. This sort of rough tactic, roughhouse tactics, is not condoned by civil society, ought not to be condoned by civil society.
“These are my comments because how do you win over the cooperation of the citizens of this country if you are using brute-force tactics? It simply does not work.
“I am not saying all police officers do it, but this is a problem which exists and it is not right.”
MET WITH PEEVE
The judge’s observation will likely be met with peeve, public anger even, from both rank-and-file cops and some in the constabulary’s leadership. The force’s government overseers, too, will have their hackles raised.
They will make t wo primary arguments. The most readily deployed one – although in this case not specifically directed at the witness – is that of the bleeding-heart liberals giving succour to criminals. Which is in the same vein as the complaints of judges being too lenient in granting bail to arrested suspects.
Second, the national security minister, Horace Chang, and the constabulary’s leadership will insist that the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) is no longer the jack-booted, paramilitary organisation that it used to be. It is now a modern, 21st century institution.
There is absolutely no question that the JCF has had improvements during the tenure of the current commissioner, Major General Antony Anderson. There have been major investments in technology to enhance the efficiency of the force, which has reported that its clear-up rate for murders has jumped from around a third to 60 per cent. The JCF has also touted a 10 per cent decline in major crimes in 2023, although homicides, despite being seven per cent lower, were still at a staggering 1,393.
Despite these gains, the perception still holds strongly of the JCF as an organisation enmeshed in corruption; that is resistant to change; and that is ready to circle the wagons against institutionally transformative actions.
REGULARLY REINFORCED
This view of the JCF is regularly reinforced by people’s anecdotal accounts of their interactions with its members and the frequent viral clips on social media showing unprofessional conduct by police officers, including, to use Justice Morrison’s phrase, “roughhouse tactics” against citizens.
A case in point was the video late last year of an officer kneeling in the stomach and pepper spraying a frightened 11-yearold boy to subdue him, while several other officers aggressively admonished the child. That video prompted INDECOM’s deputy head, Hamish Anthony, to comment: “The video, although I don’t know what preceded the clip, shows a disturbing level of aggression and use of pepper spray on a juvenile.”
Indeed, it is in this cultural and human element that the JCF, despite its technological advances, has lagged severely. And it is the area of which its leaders speak far too little.
There is no doubt that Jamaica’s police operate in challenging circumstances, contributing to the 155 fatal shootings by the security forces in 2023 – a figure that has been trending upwards again recently after its sharp downward spiral in the first several years after the launch of INDECOM. Last year’s fatal shootings were 16 per cent higher than in 2022.
It is not clear whether there is any correlation between the issue on which Justice Morrison commented, the uptick in the statistics for fatal shootings, INDECOM’s several complaints of its inability to get video images from the body-worn cameras from the JCF and the absence of feedback on disciplinary actions against police officers who were recommended for sanctions.
The bottomline, however, is that the JCF should take Justice Morrison’s remarks seriously and act on them. The moral bar and expected behaviour, are after all, higher for the police force.