Orville Taylor | Social programmes for crime reduction

Her name is Claudette Crawford Brown and she is without question, one of the best faces of social work in the English-speaking Caribbean. This is not simply a case of my bigging up a colleague, with whom I have rubbed shoulders for three decades. After all, she is only one of many social workers who have been in the trenches and have produced work, and carried out social interventions that have absolutely worked. Legends such as June Dolly Besson, Janet Brown and John Maxwell – yes, that same legend from Boys Town – created a pile of knowledge, which if properly consulted and utilised, with appropriate funding, and with the right people in the right places, would produce the requisite results.

Add to these, Lita Allen, Karlene Boyce Reid, Melrose Rattray, John Small and Peta Anne Baker, among others.

Crawford Brown is perhaps more enigmatic, because she created the concept of ‘barrel children’. The term, often mischievously used to describe nutritionally careless individuals, who upgraded their original Coca-Cola bottle shape, to the two-litre version, it spoke to the dynamic of raising children, whose parents migrated ostensibly to make a better life for them. American network NBC has featured her work in 2021. What have the powers that be here done?

Within the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work (DSPSW), at The University of The West Indies (UWI) Mona Campus, there is an interesting cadre of behavioural scientists, whose work can bounce seamlessly off each other.

Yet, divisive legacies of slavery remain. Thus, my preferred term is the ‘plantation’ rather than Mutty Perkins’ ‘intellectual ghetto’. Recently, a colleague from CAPRI, a research organ ensconced at the UWI, drew negatives about the usefulness of social interventions in communities, where gangs are entrenched.

Throwing up of the hands and white flag is not only disappointing, but also disrespectful of the work done by many of the aforementioned stalwarts. CAPRI is located within literal hopping distance of the offices of the country’s two most well-known sociologists, and despite the cordiality, I cannot recall, in the last decade, any arm or ear being extended in the direction of these people who study human beings for their living. True, economists have particular insights about behaviour and behavioural scientists may speak about economics. However, there is a difference between cursory knowledge and expertise.

LAMENTED

In 2019, Minister of National Security, Dr Horace Chang, lamented the failure of multiple social intervention programmes in St James in particular, between 2007 and 2017, where homicide grew from 12 to 182 per 100,000. While, I disagreed with the inferred message, which pretty much sounded like that of CAPRI, I am very happy that there is no ambivalence or ambiguity on his part about the importance of social programmes today, where he stated, “It is an issue that is multifaceted, but we are working on how we can change the environment … but the expansion of the social service … supported by the police is a programme that we’re actively pursuing.”

Nevertheless, the contention is not about the importance of social programmes, but most critically, who are the warm bodies designing and implementing them.

A common disclaimer one gets when buying appliances, is that they must be installed by approved experts; otherwise, the warranty is void. Within the ministry, there are indeed a number of programmes which are working. And call it self-serving, but there are technocrats, including the ministry’s chief technical director, who carry the fingerprint of the DSPSW. Therefore, that there is little to disagree with Chang in his comments last week and no reason not to support.

There is no space for dissent, that we simply have to reduce the likelihood of young men joining gangs, becoming scammers or other kinds of threats to society. We perhaps might wish to look at the years 2014 and 2015 when we had still the two lowest homicide rates since the 2000s, and ask ourselves what was happening at the time. Apart from the initiatives inside and outside of the ministry, there were also occurrences within the constabulary.

MOTIVATION

The period 2012 to 2016 traversed the tenure of two police commissioners, and despite reputed overzealousness of INDECOM, there was a high degree of motivation within the constabulary and a number of policies which clearly pointed to a recognition that a human resource development approach, rather than a military one, was the best means of guaranteeing the right type of behaviour from the members of the Force. After all, police officers are merely civilians in uniform and really no different from customs, correctional, or immigration officers, except in the scope of laws which govern them. They are not, and absolutely not soldiers.

An indispensable part of the motivation for police officers in carrying out expected patterns of behaviour and productivity, is that they also must work under conditions that the International Labor Organization calls ‘Decent Work’. Indeed, during the period when there was very high clear-up of major crimes and fewer homicides, there was a degree of accountability in assessments for promotions. Thus, if there was evidence or reason to believe that an individual deliberately or wilfully kept his foot on the head of his subordinates; then it would be a red flag in terms of his or her own promotion.

Simply put, one should not benefit from abusing one’s juniors. Believe it or not; when one assembles all of the variables associated with the antecedents of violent behaviour, either by individual civilians whose parents treated them badly, or workers whose superiors mistreated them, the consistent trigger is abuse.

As inconvenient as it might be to some, there is no way forward until the issues of crime and violence are connected to not just economic outcomes but simply the humane approach, where people are made to feel that they matter.

The work and research are there for who wish to use it. We leave the politics to the politicians, because the solutions have no colour.

Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com