Questions from a Canterbury Tale
D.K. Duncan
Jamaica Gleaner
October 20, 2003
"CONTINUOUSLY REPRODUCING desperate populations that are ready made 'candidates' for murder and mayhem is really the nub of the nation's crime problem. The search for meaningful solutions ought not to lie therefore in the nature of a particular offence but in the way offenders are nurtured."
Sociologist and criminologist, Professor Bernard Headley came to this conclusion in his 2002 publication - "A Spade is Still a Spade." These sentiments are clearly in sync with those expressed in the report of the National Committee on Crime and Violence. They are embedded in the major root causes identified.
The information emerging from the incidents in Canterbury last week support these conclusions. The same is true when the available evidence from Temple Hall is also reviewed. Many other recent incidents of crime and violence reported over the past year also support Headley's analysis as well as those of the National Committee.
THE CRIME PLAN
The 16 major recommendations arising from the identification of five major root causes of crime and violence were accepted by and signed to by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the mid-2002. Civil Society in the main was supportive of the analysis and the recommendations. The former Minister of the National Security and Justice, K.D. Knight, chaired the Committee. The Committee and himself were lavishly praised for presenting such an in-depth and comprehensive report in the short time available.
The essence of the plan is not being implemented. Is this just a perception or is it stark reality? Could it be that the new Minister of National Security, Peter Phillips, is not in support of this essence? He came to office in January 2002 after the Knight Report was submitted. Since then the major emphasis has been on Minister Phillip's main concern, as he puts it - Narco-terrorism as "the tap root of crime."
SOCIAL INTERVENTIONS
In December 2002, the Minister stated in his prepared text for Parliament that "at the same time, we have embarked upon an aggressive multi-agency programme on social upliftment which will help to alleviate poverty and be a deterrent to crime." Eight months later, in August 2003, he reported in a broadcast to the nation that "I can say quite frankly that where the effort has fallen short is in the extent of the social intervention measures which will be needed to sustain and add to the basic improvements in the targeted communities to strengthen the community effort."
Canterbury would have been included as a targeted community at the outset if there was any credible intelligence. Can the Minister tell us what level of social intervention preceded the intervention of the Security Forces during the last week?
In that broadcast in August, the Minster also told us that "the Prime Minster has given instruction to the various agencies responsible for this effort, co-ordinated by the Ministry of Development and the Cabinet Office" to first track this aspect of the Plan. Can Minister Paul Robertson or the Prime Minister himself tell us the progress of this tracking? Or are we continuing in the track of "continuously reproducing desperate populations that are ready-made candidates for mayhem and murder"?
MORE QUESTIONS
Where were the voices of the leaders and leadership of both parties when the political parties as manifested in Temple Hall needed to be publicly condemned? Is there really an understanding of what was agreed to in the consensus of the Crime Plan?
Why is it so easy for the political leaders to be orgasmic over the bipartisan education consensus - but find it so difficult to work up similar enthusiasm for the more widely supported Crime plan?
Has the Security Minister made any connection between his other responsibility in the Constitutional Reform Process and the root causes of crime and violence identified in the Crime Plan?
Where is the programme envisaged by the Plan "to engage Civil Society on the basis of its own self-interest and participation"? In the Canterbury case, was the intervention "carried through with anything approaching maximum effectiveness to citizens and the communities in which they live"?
The Canterbury Tale provides us with the confirmation of the analysis and conclusions of the National Committee on Crime. It supports Bernard Headley's view that the Minister may be "off the mark."
Canterbury calls on us once again to commit to a programme which seeks to stem the continuous reproduction of "desperate populations that are ready-made 'candidates' for murder and mayhem." Canterbury and Temple Hall are the most recent examples that confirm "the nub of the nation's crime problem." One Love One Heart.
Dental Surgeon, Dr. D.K. Duncan, is a former General Secretary and Cabinet Minister in the PNP Administration of the 1970's.