By Earl Bousquet

What started as proliferation of US-made small arms in exchange for drugs has now metamorphosed into a regional inflow of high-calibre weapons, including self-assembled models also Made-in-America.

Governments have been implementing new measures, but as the killing and violence continues regionally, the actual effects of anti-crime measures are coming under increased scrutiny.

Crime Summit

Last year, Caribbean Community (Caricom) Heads of Government gathered in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, for a Summit on Crime.

Thereafter, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) circulated a report titled: ‘Caribbean Gangs: Drugs, Firearms and Gangs Networks in Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.’

According to that report, some governments have stepped-up their ‘tough-on-crime’ measures by ‘enacting states-of-emergency, promulgating anti-gang legislation and instituting anti-gang units, or authorizing heavy-handed policing strategies.’

But it also notes that, while there have been more arrests and drug seizures, ‘an erosion of trust has occurred within the heavily-policed communities.’

Extrajudicial Violence

Noting concern about alleged ‘extra-judicial violence’, the report notes: ‘Saint Lucia is now under US Leahy Law sanctions owing to allegations of extra-judicial killings by the police, while extra-judicial violence was also identified in Jamaica and Guyana.’

(The Leahy Law prohibits the US State and Defense Departments from providing military assistance to foreign security force units claimed to have ‘violated human rights with impunity’.)

The report adds, however, that ‘The ways the four countries (Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia and Trinidad & Tobago) are tackling gangs, has also had an unseen but detrimental effect…’

It also says: ‘Caribbean, US, and EU-backed measures to crack-down on gang leadership are also generating unintended outcomes.’

Neglect and Corruption

The report laments the effect of ‘social neglect, state neglect and official corruption’ on ‘encouraging gangs and organized crime’.

It notes too that most Caribbean gangs ‘emerge in response to criminal opportunity and in conditions of social and economic deprivation.’

As a result, it says, ‘Gangs now address the social alienation of some youngsters…’

It says: ‘While most gangs seek to generate profits for their leadership, they also play a role in incubating a sense of belonging and identity to the rank-and-file’ members.

Gangs were found to be ‘overwhelmingly of younger males, often lacking educational and employment opportunities and deeply suspicious of public authorities.’

The related conclusion was, therefore: ‘While often short and brutal, gang life offers money, respect, belonging, and access to intimate partners.’

Facilitation

‘Corrupt public officials’ have also ‘facilitated the activities of criminal gangs’ that ‘frequently collude with state actors and private businesses…’

It adds that ‘In the case of the larger gangs and gang federations, political and economic elites regularly make use of their services to influence elections in key districts and protect personal and commercial property and assets.’

The authors also cite a separate 2009 report entitled ‘Small Arms Survey, No Other Life: Gangs, Guns and Governance in TT’, by Dorn Townsend.

This report says: ‘A few well-connected gangs facilitate the trans-shipment of illegal commodities -drugs, guns, smuggled migrants and trafficked people- with tacit or overt support from well-placed politicians, corrupt customs officials and complicit police officers.’

Impunity

The second report says ‘The considerable impunity afforded gang leaders has emboldened some to diversify into new businesses, including migrant smuggling and trafficking in persons for sexual exploitation, to lawful retail and services with high turn-over -including car dealerships, grocery chains, real estate and pharmacies…’

Such persons are also engaged in ‘import-export activities’ like ‘cars and parts, agricultural produce, oil and gas’ and others involved in ‘high-velocity cash businesses like pharmacies, grocers and casinos, as well as bribing port and customs officials…’

It explains, however, that ‘Representatives from several regional and national intelligence agencies are aware that a small number of business people are more-likely to be connected to trafficking and money laundering.’

In addition, ‘Weapons and ammunition were diverted from police and private security arsenals…’

The authors lament, however, that since the 2023 crime summit, recommendations were “hardly-used, to the detriment of regional countries.”

But much has to do with the way the regional press reports crime and violence, which continue to be preferred headlines, considered better than increased government investments in crime-fighting measures or even the incremental but growing successes in the crime fight in some cases.

In pursuit of saucy stories comparing homicide rates under different governments, regional reporters and journalists tend to largely ignore the fact that deadly crime is also a worsening problem in the UK and USA, where parents are now being arrested for deadly school shootings by children allowed easy access to deadly weapons.

Crime Management is one problem, but prison over-population is another, with 1,700 UK prisoners early-released on September 10 to address a growing space shortage.

The lowering of the coverage bar is also manifested in how some media houses simply go with any flow to float any new story.

In Saint Lucia, for example, where no previous administration has spent as much as assigned by Minister for National Security and Finance Philip J. Pierre. The prime minister last week announced temporary appointment of a former Prisons Chief as the new Commissioner after the first woman commissioner’s contract ended on August 31.

But a big local media story was about sour-grape complaints from existing police Top Brass that the new Top Cop ‘didn’t come from within the ranks’ -despite him also having earlier also been a senior police officer.

The press tends to behave like reporters and journalists are immune to crime, until it strikes home.

But the press everywhere also has a sacred duty and responsibility to contribute to the search for solutions to crime -and not only to be the first to report new ‘breaking news’ that simply add-volume to and recycle natural public concerns and fears.