(available at Amazon.com)

A Jamaica  Poor No More
By Michael Irving Phillips

(As we approach the end of my nook, I must confess my disappointment at the lack of response to it. I do not mean just positive feedback, but I was hoping for influential advocates for the proposals in the book. Without them, I think Jamaica is doomed to be not poor no more. I love Jamaica. I gave it my best.)

Chapter 13

Babylon No More

 The cradle of crime

About 10 years ago, I was on vaca­tion in Ocho Rios. On the beach I met a Rasta, who was selling fruits out of some ragged make-shift barely-seawor­thy but brightly-decorated floating contraption. (Did not qualify as a boat.) He was typical of so many there who work hard against great odds to make an honest living. During conver­sation he told me that the night before he had been robbed of the money he made. He even knew who the robber was. "Did you report it to the police?” I asked. It turned out that was a ridiculous question. Would the police  investigate or even listen to his com­plaint?” No way,^'”  he said. They were likely to tell him " Gooway and nuh bother us” if not abusing him too.

Can you imagine how helpless and frustrated this victim must feel? To be sure this crime is no one time occurrence. The victim can look forward to this happening over and over and over again after regular intervals. On the other hand, the robber probably has a whole network of victims. And, I am sure this type of thing goes on in many other poor neighborhoods all over Jamaica.

Of course some victims might not take it lying down. They might get a gun and seek redress. Or they might get a group of friends to beat  their money out of the robber. But, the robber has buddies too and soon full-fledged gang warfare is underway.

Not only can this lead to gang warfare, assault and battery and even murder, but if the perpetrator is unchecked by police and gets away with his crime over and over again, it will embolden him. So he will step up from crimes against the poor to small business and on to  the middle class. Make sure your burglar bars are intact.

The reality is that poor people are the greatest victims of crime and the police do not or are perceived as not protecting them, except for murder or other sensational crimes. It is dismissed as just petty crime. But it is not petty to some poor person barely eking out  a living.

 So, why should poor people cooperate with police if the police do not protect them, do not care about them, and are more likely to hassle them. And poor people constitute an overwhelming majority of our citizens, so a better relationship with the police is essential to the society.

I should point out that Jamaica is by no means unique in this, but this type of thing is typical  in the US and probably all over the world.

The fact of the matter is that poor people are entitled to equal protection by police and they do not get it. The consequences are dire. Robbing and victimizing the poor becomes the training ground for criminals. So, if we are serious about fighting crime, we need to give extra protection to the poor and make that a top priority. Stop these beginners before they become hardened professional criminals.

Educate them

Several slip into crime because of ignorance.

Informers have a bad name. But we have to make a choice. Do we inform and help the victim? Or, do we remain silent and help the criminal?

Fisticuffs might break out. Often the combatants are egged-on. And, the winner might even be congratulated. Everyone likes a winner.  He is often congratulated for winning but he might not have been in the right. He might have been just a bully. He might have committed a simple assault on an innocent victim. Under these circumstances such congratulations might be supporting “might is right”.  So at times, the victim, hurting from a black-eye and a bleeding swollen lip, must also deal with the humiliation of losing the fight. This philosophy occurs too often in the world today and even on a country-to-country level. We need to  always stand up for the  right.

Besides, instead of encouraging fighters, we should be peacemakers. Sometimes even simple disputes  explode into vicious  outcomes, even murder. I read recently that a member of Jamaica’s women’s national  soccer team was stabbed to death ina dispute over a cell phone.  Regrets don’t mean much after a person is killed.  If the police were at the dispute. there would have been no murder, no prison term. If a peacemaker was at the dispute, there would have been no murder, no prison time. I wonder if anyone egged them on.

For A Lousy Cell Phone

by Michael Irving Phillips

 For a lousy cell phone

The victim will no longer
Dribble the field
Of the National Stadium
To the cheers of hundreds
Ringing in her ears
The worms will eat her coffined body
In silence

For a lousy cellphone
The killer sunk her knife
For a lousy cellphone

The killer took her life

Regrets will not bring her back
For a lousy cell phone

You have given up your freedom

For living in  a cell

For the rest of your life.

For a lousy cellphone

You will never  own a cellphone

You will never touch a cellphone

For the rest of your life

For a lousy cellphone

You took a life

And threw away yours

What have you gained?

Nothing,

But the hatred of Jamaica

The cellphone may be smart

But you are stupid.

Very stupid

Education is the key. Every Jamaican should be educated in conflict resolution. We need to include in the curriculum of schools a civics course which would include conflict resolution, goodwillism, the stupidity of crime and even sex education. Conflict resolution is the process by which two or more parties reach a peaceful resolution to a dispute. A conflict resolution course  is being taught already in some schools in Jamaica, but it should be required in all schools. Instead of just the three R’s, schools should also prepare students to cope with the complexities and responsibilities of adulthood and to be better citizens.

We should not be ignoring very minor crimes, as unchecked,  they are likely to grow into major crimes.  For such small crimes we could treat them like we do the penalty for traffic infractions in some countries. There, they  issue warnings and tickets and follow up with sending  perpetrators to traffic school. I say for those  who commit small offences we should include crime school in their  punishment.

 Missing ingredient

The latest crime reduction plan the Government has come up declaring State of Emergencies and designating  Zones of Special Operations (ZOSA) to fight crime in selected high crime areas.. ZOSA is basically a state of emergency but covers a smaller  area. States of emergency typically  trample some human rights. Even if these reduce crime, it is not feasible to have a state of emergency indefinitely in these zones. The objectives sounded very reasonable:

• to provides a respite in the number of murders,
• to expand the number of law enforcement personnel on the ground,
• to restrict the free movement of criminals
• to gives regular policing an increased ability to work.

It seemed to be working and the public seemed pleased. Initial results were good, but despite these states of emergencies, official figures from the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) show that the number of murders committed in Jamaica up to October 12, 2019  for the same period the previous  year have actually gone up from 997 to 1,026.

Crime plans come and go and often achieve limited success but usually are not sustainable. But, there is a missing ingredient. For any crime reduction plan to work, it must have strong public support, trust and coopera­tion. In recent times, instead of cooperation there has been confronta­tion. Trust has to be re-established be­tween the police and members of the public, particularly the poor. So asking for this support is not enough. The missing ingredient, therefore, is a focus and concerted effort to build a better relationship between communities and police. Years ago my newsletter, Hot Calaloo, proposed a good  way to do this by DWP, Dialogue With People.

DWP, Dialogue With People

DWP is essentially holding town  meetings between the public and public officials in neighborhoods which are obvious hot spots of crime. It is evident that citizens perceive that they do not have an opportunity to make their concerns and frustrations heard, so they take to the streets to do just that.

These town hall meetings can be a valuable safety valve and at the same time allow valuable face-to-face exchange of infor­mation. I think the police can learn a lot from this and at the same time can convey the human side of the mag­nitude and danger of the job they have to do. People need to know how difficult the job of a policeman is. Too often they receive undeserved criticism and not the appreciation they deserve when they do a good job. Goodwillism in these instances require that we Triple A them, be A-ware of their good performance, A-cknowledge it and show A-ppreciation. The DWP meeting would be a great place to exhibit this.

DWP Meeting

This is a very important event so should be planned down to the smallest detail for maximum effectiveness.

Features of the meeting would include:

• Meetings would be held indoors in an area schoolhouse, church hall or similar venue large enough to hold a big crowd.
• Area residents should be invited and encouraged to attend to state their complaints, participate, and to listen and learn for themselves.
• Rules of order should be made known ahead of time, and ad­hered to.
• These rules should include time limits on complaints and
• Free refreshments should be con­sidered as free food has a mellow­ing effect which might be very
• Very tight security for obvious reasons
• Meeting should be recorded on videotape to review and address matters arising from the meeting_: to evaluate achievement, to make future improvement for sub­sequent meetings, for PR reasons: which might include TV broadcast
• Follow-up meeting or regularly scheduled meetings.

Attendees

Attendees would include, moderator, special guests and the public consisting of area residents.

A skilled moderator should ensure real dialogue. This is the most critical person to the success of this event. The most important aspect is dialogue. Those typical private investigations with multi-page report do not reach the man-in-the-street. Someone stand­ing at a podium lecturing with a few token questions answered will not qualify as real dialogue.

Special Guests

There will be essentially two types of special guests. The first will be high officials, Government and otherwise, who will serve to add prestige and show support for the undertaking. The second type will be high officials to serve as authoritative sources, to address complaints, be accountable, and share information. These special guests should be carefully chosen and should include:

• Police representation ideally the Commissioner, Minister of Security, and local policeman skilled in PR
• Political party reps but they must agree beforehand on the mission of harmony and understanding and not pushing their own agenda

• Area religious and other community leaders
  

Expected benefits

Citizens and police will obtain a better understanding of each other.

• Citizens will be able to vent their anger and frustration in a produc­tive manner without violence and civic disruptions
• Police will really get the perspec­tive of the poor citizens
• Certain myths and misconcep­tions will be cleared up.
• Previously unknown community leaders will emerge and can be utilized as a resource to build har­mony and cooperation.
• Special community committees may be formed such as, a Neigh­borhood Watch committee, a joint police-citizens review board to monitor police actions in the community, a refreshment committee to provide refreshment for DWP meetings, and most important, a police-citizen liaison committee to improve police-citizen relations and so on.

Police-Citizen Community Liaison Committee

The police-citizen liaison community committee is of special importance. As its name implies, it would be composed of police  and community leaders. Victims of crime who are afraid to go to the police could seek out the committee or individual members to get justice done.

Let's do it!

Let's do it! Let's reason together. To be sure there are risks. The meeting could deteriorate into a big hostile public squabble. But the potential rewards are great. For the citizens, it could gain them the understanding, respect, protection and real commit­ment from the police.

The police have even more to gain. Right now the police are called Babylon, reflecting the distrust and suspicion many Jamaicans have for them. They could be "Babylon" no more. They could gain an appreciation of the peril, com­plexity and difficulty of their job. Instead of enmity, suspicion and contempt, they stand to gain apprecia­tion, support and cooperation. This is bound to boost morale on the force, increase job satisfaction and make them more effective in fighting the real criminals that now terrorize our beloved island.