TACKLING CRIME AND VIOLENCE WITHIN THE CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY (CARICOM): Part TwoSome Thoughts of Fairbairn Egerton Liverpool

Sep 24, 2017 News

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(Continued for last week)
What has been the International Response?
The most reliable and extensive knowledge about police corruption in the world’s English-speaking countries is found in the reports of specially appointed blue-ribbon commissions, independent of government, and created for the sole purpose of conducting investigations of police corruption.
In their reports, most of the commissions have recommended that in order to reduce police corruption the creation of permanent external oversight over police with particular emphasis on monitoring police officer misbehaviour is imperative. Further, the recommendations from these commissions have focused in general on reforms to police culture, management, recruitment and training, disciplinary processes, and internal integrity monitoring.
The remedies proposed have mostly relied on a set of contextual conditions not commonly found in small countries with small populations and with relatively weak economies, such as CARICOM States, where “everybody knows everybody”.
Surveys, media accounts and observer reports all agree that police corruption in the developing world is more pervasive and visible than in the developed world. In small developing states, police corruption is an open fact of life while in the developed world, it is out of sight, generally confined to the shadowy world of vice regulation, according to a comparative study reported in the British Journal of Criminology (November, 2006). This suggests that efforts to reduce police corruption in the small states like those in the Caribbean cannot be informed by what is necessarily done in the developed world but must be based on analyses of differences in the who, what, how and when of local corruption, mindful of the need for an external component to involve the people who are very much aware of all the corruption in our societies.
The Dilemma of Policing in the Caribbean
In an attempt to put into context my recommendations to tackle crime and violence in CARICOM, I wish to share two seemingly anecdotal but in actuality true conversations with two police constables from a Member State that will be unnamed. It is my view that the inferences of the exchanges succinctly encapsulate the profound dilemma of policing in the Commonwealth Caribbean.
Conversation No. 1:
During one of my informal conversations with a female police constable in one Member State in which I was trying to get an understanding of the challenges facing the police there, she shared with me an experience of hers.
She had cause once to charge two men who had committed a traffic offence. When notice of her action came to the attention of her supervisor, she was summoned to his office and told in no uncertain terms that she should drop the charge against one of the men and only charge the other one, implying by this action that the one to be freed was a “big one”.
Angered by the unlawfulness of the order from her supervisor, she rudely said to him “You do it if you wish” and walked out of his office.
Conversation No.2:
A friend of mine who is a Judge told me of a very revealing conversation he once had with a 19-year old police constable without him knowing that he was a judge. He said that the young policeman boasted of a 5-year plan of his to own “a house, a car and a ‘lil’ business”.
What are the implications of these two conversations?
Simplistic as they may seem, they are symptomatic of the two most destructive forces that undermine the rule of law in the Commonwealth Caribbean, politicization of crime and police corruption. Politicized crime can be defined as any unlawful act committed by a governing politician or official.
Politicization of Crime
A story is told of a new government in a certain Member State that came to power after many years in the opposition. While in opposition, their members were so intimidated and prosecuted by the police on behalf of the then government that some of their members were morbidly afraid of the police when they assumed the reins of government. Can you imagine the dilemma of that new government in dealing with a police force that was used as an instrument of oppression over them?
Distrust and suspicion of the police clouded their thinking and decision making in matters relating to the police until they realized that the police under their control was indeed a weapon they also could use politically.
Today, with the considerable powers entrenched in the hands of our politicians by virtue of the constitutions that govern us in the Commonwealth Caribbean, can we realistically expect a body like the Police Service Commission (PSC), appointed by a President or Prime Minister, to dictate to the President or Prime Minister who should or should not be appointed as Commissioner of Police (COP)?
Given the political, social and economic realities of life in the Caribbean, with the destructive and corruptive influence of drug money in all aspects of our lives, it is no surprise to hear that a ‘big one’ could have picked up a phone and call on the police to carry out any act, ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’.
The dilemma honest cops, like the young female constable referred to earlier, face is from whom can they seek recourse? If the stakes are high enough, their honest and professional functions can become a matter of life or death.
The intellectual authors of crime and violence in the Caribbean will sooner than later not only hold the police hostage but also the very politicians who allow themselves to be corrupted.
Confronted with challenges of corruption both externally and internally to the force, should the COP be rightfully held accountable for the efficiency and performance of the police force when he or she is not responsible for the discipline or promotions for the ranks in the force?
Why should the responsibility for discipline and promotion of any rank of the police force be that of the PSC? What are the choices of the honest COP who does not want to be politically controlled? Seeking consolation among the political opposition may present itself as an attractive option. What if the politics of a country is clouded by race or ethnic differences? How could the politicization of crime be kept in check in the small societies in which we live in the Caribbean?
Because of distrust of the police, it has been the tendency of some new governments to create intelligence and other law enforcement agencies independent of the police to conduct investigations and prosecute the criminality that might have occurred under former administrations.
Some have been created as a counter balance to the police which have resulted in unnecessary but understandable professional rivalries and even conflict. Historically, these initiatives have turned out to be rather short lived because they have generally been perceived to be politically motivated and personality driven. As soon as administrations change, their utility value is brought into question. Those that have continued to exist sooner or later manifest symptoms of systemic corruption. (To be continued)

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