JAMAICA is a ready example of a country with a high crime rate, but Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington describes it as “tolerable”.
Speaking to the DAILY NATION during a break of the opening session at the two-day intersessional meeting of the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police (ACCP) at Amaryllis Beach Resort yesterday, Ellington said of greater concern to Jamaica and other territories was the high level of violence.
“Our violence is a direct offshoot of organised crime . . . . It is not just gunfighting. It is impacting several states, and as long as the gangs are involved in a kind of trans-border activities and they make profits off them, they’re going to continue in them, so law enforcement has got to focus on disrupting and defeating organised [crime] and we’re going to see a reduction in the level of violence in the countries,” he said.
He said denying gang members access to the commodities they smuggled, denying access to business sectors to prevent money laundering and cooperating with law enforcement in other countries – “so that if you put pressure on them in one country, they can’t move easily into another country if the same kinds of denial are in place” – would be some of the ways of defeating organised crime.
Ellington said he was satisfied that Jamaica was getting that support from other territories.
“We have very, very strong working relationship with [the United States, Britain, and Canada] in dealing with transnational criminal elements. One of the important things of a meeting
like this is that CARICOM Commissioners of Police are discussing the same problem. We’re looking at the same kinds of disruptive strategies.
“Hopefully, if we tighten up the environment all around, we can tighten up the freedom of movement and the freedom of action that they enjoy. And if we do that successfully, we should be able to disrupt them sufficiently or defeat them,” he suggested.
President of the ACCP, Commissioner Ellison Greenslade of The Bahamas, said the 24-member countries recognised the need to have synergistic responses to fighting crime and facing challenges.
“The issues that confront us in the region, those issues are no different from the issues that confront other major countries across the globe. Based upon our training and the level of exposure around the world we can say that with some degree
of surety. There is a lot of work for us to do in our individual countries,” Greenslade said, adding that members responded individually and collectively to challenges.
He said he recently had to thank Ellington for “some wonderful work” that was done in Jamaica in the apprehension of two criminals wanted in The Bahamas.
“We have done a lot of work over the years in terms of infrastructural developments, certainly with technology, and we do really good work. There is a lot of work that we do that we don’t just talk about . . . . I tell you a vibrant region, very, very upstanding commissioners.
“You will see now a new core of commissioners . . . all switched on, excited, passionate about the places where they live and willing every day to make the best contributions to making these places safer,” he stated.
As to the reported high levels of crime in Jamaica and Trinidad, Greenslade said the two countries might come in for criticism that might not always be warranted.
“I say that because you have to not just look at the crimes – you have to look at the per capita.
So if you’re discussing murder, and I’m going to quote you a figure, and I say . . . 400 in Trinidad, you have to look at the 400 in Trinidad – I’m not saying that’s what it is;
I’m just using an arbitrary figure – against a population of Trinidad and Tobago to determine what that per capita is.
You can take a smaller jurisdiction like The Bahamas, where the population is basically about
340 000 people, look at the number of murders, and look at the per capita. Now you get a different picture. So you cannot just look at the raw scores . . . .,” he warned.
“But I cannot in good faith say to you that any one country in this region could be castigated as having such a bad record; you have to look at it in context. And we have to respect the people in this region. We are in a global village, where our voices must be just as loud as everybody else’s,” Greenslade added.
He said the ACCP and the Regional Security System would continue to work together and with the other agencies and let people of the region know that crime is not only a conversation for law enforcement, but for all the countries and the region. (YB)
