Caribbean & Crime: Prosperity Under Threat

Much has been said about our Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF) in recent years. We admit that our RBPF has been a professional unit and for the most part distinguished itself from its counterparts in the region by staying away from any serious corrupt behaviour — the kind of behaviour which has tarnished police forces in Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad. In Barbados, we have had concerns expressed about how our RPBF has extracted statements from individuals charged, the questionable ‘bed side manner’ practiced, but most of all we have had the most concern leveled at the physical environs which policemen have to perform in their jobs. The effort of our police is further compounded by a judiciary system which is still connected to the stone age.

The purpose of our article is not meant to ridicule the RPBF or by extension our court system. We want our readers and our authorities to reconcile the idea that there is a close relationship between economic prosperity, and law and order. We note that many of our Caribbean islands are exclusively dependent on tourism and foreign investment to drive their economies. The negative impact of out of control crime will impact our region negatively. The worrying point for the Caribbean region is that we are so small as a region, one ‘bad island’ will probably spoil the whole lot. External agencies routinely label the region as the Caribbean; some may even go as far as to lump us with South America.

We note that our new Attorney General, the Honourable Fruendel Stuart who has responsibility for the RPBF has been visiting our woefully inadequate facilities which our policemen have to use. We, however, hasten to add that most if not all of Minister Stuart’s predecessors would have done the same thing. We remember David Simmons who is our current Chief Justice doing a similar tour. The conditions of our police stations in 2008 and the lack of a modern infrastructure remains a major embarrassment. If anyone has a doubt visit any of the stations of your choice and feedback to BU. We recommend the Central and Boarded Hall stations.

Many Barbadians remain concern at recent events in Guyana where law and order seems to be under threat. There are worrying signs in Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica. In most of the islands one can make the argument that law and order is an issue which our leaders should tackle under a unified policy. At the regional level our leaders continue to say the politically correct things, yet a rapid decline in law and order continues in our region. New Prime Minister David Thompson and his counterpart Patrick Manning from Trinidad and Tobago issued a joint communiqué last week which addressed the importance of security to our region. Will we see a shift from the rhetoric this time around?

We were alarmed when we read Robert Buddan’s article, UWI lecturer at Mona in Jamaica, in the Jamaica Gleaner of 24 February 2008 which started as follows:

Jamaica’s murder rate increased by 17 per cent in 2007, to a level behind only the record year of 2005. The two most murderous years, in other words, were two of the last three years. Last year, 65 children, 146 women and 19 policemen were among those murdered. This year has started badly too. At the end of January, the murder rate remained alarming. No wonder the latest Gleaner/Johnson polls show an increasingly frustrated Jamaican population calling in even greater numbers for the death penalty. One of the strongest areas of consensus in Jamaica is that hanging must be resumed. Seventy-nine per cent felt this way in mid-January.

Mr Buddan’s article should be read against the backdrop of rising crime in our region and the threat which it continues to pose to our region which is dependent on tourism. Our leaders continue to fail their respective countries by not committing the required resources toward improving our judiciary system, security laws, introducing penal reform and last but not lease improving the physical infrastructure which our police forces have to operate.

Here is what the World Bank had to report on this matter in 2007:

MIAMI, May 3, 2007 (Reuters) – The tourism-dependent Caribbean may now have the world’s highest murder rate as a region, severely affecting potential economic growth, the World Bank and a U.N. agency said in a report on Thursday. Blaming most of the violent crime in countries like Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago on the trafficking of Colombian cocaine to Europe and the United States, the report said the region’s homicide rate of 30 per 100,000 inhabitants a year was higher even than troubled southern and western Africa.

It acknowledged that murder statistics in small countries were often problematic because a relatively small number of incidents can result in high rates but said it was clear that homicides were a growing problem in the Caribbean. “While levels of crime and associated circumstances vary by country, the strongest explanation for the relatively high rates of crime and violence in the region — and their apparent rise in recent years — is narcotics trafficking,” said the report, jointly prepared by the World Bank and the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

BU find it interesting that Barbados and many of our islands continue to call for the death penalty which many seem to think will solve the problem of growing crime in the region. Should we point out that Guyana and Trinidad practice the death penalty? What we need is to have cohesion at the regional level. This takes on importance now that we appear to have free movement of people in a CSME environment. Our immigration, police, customs and other security agencies must shed their parochial inhibitions and understand that we are all small fish swimming in the same small pond. When their is cohesion at the regional level only then will the domestic initiatives make sense.

We continue to be amazed that our leaders continue to fail the PEOPLE by regurgitating policies and programs which are doomed to fail if history is used as a barometer. They become elected and many of them leave public office fortified in the knowledge that their financial futures are secure. Our PEOPLE have been lulled into a false sense of security. The indicators are all around us that we are operating in troubling times. Our leaders must insure that economic policies are adequately implemented which address social cohesion. Many of our leaders now seem immerse in the economic side of the equation when governing.