Nearly six in 10 Jamaicans express diminished feelings of safety in their homes over the past decade, a revelation from a recent poll by Don Anderson. This insight holds significant importance for Prime Minister Andrew Holness as he grapples with the country's crime issues. While crime and a high murder rate contribute significantly to citizens' insecurity, concerns about corruption also add to their fear, eroding trust in institutions. As strategies for 2024 are devised, authorities must recognise the interconnectedness of addressing crime and combating corruption.

Redefine crime strategy

Jamaica Gleaner/5 Jan 2024

A SMALL observation by Don Anderson on his poll finding, that nearly six in 10 Jamaicans feel less safe in their homes today than a decade ago, is a significant fact for Prime Minister Andrew Holness to keep in mind as he and his security officials fashion solutions to the country’s crime problem.

While crime in general and the island’s high murder rate are critical drivers of people’s insecurity, concerns about corruption also contributed to citizens’ fear, the pollster noted. Mr Anderson didn’t put it this way, but the perception that leadership is corrupt lends to lack of trust in institutions, which erodes people’s sense of well-being.

That observation is important as the authorities reflect on the crime data for last year and plan their strategies for 2024. Addressing robberies, extortion, rape, shootings and murders can’t be done in total isolation from the issue of corruption. Leaders have less moral authority to act, especially to take potentially unpopular decisions, if people, including criminals, perceive them to be corrupt. The presumption is that ‘we are all in the same’.

According to the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF) data, major crimes declined by 10.7 per cent in 2023, compared to the previous year. There were 1,393 murders, for a homicide rate of 51, which is the world’s highest. Yet, killings were down approximately eight per cent on the previous year’s figure of 1,511.

However, according to the findings of a survey conducted by Mr Anderson’s Market Research Services Limited, 57 per cent of adult Jamaicans feel less safe in their homes now than 10 years ago. Another 24 per cent said their sense of security at home had neither worsened nor improved. Nineteen per cent said they felt safer at home now than, in say, 2013.

PRESSING PROBLEM

Notably, in its biennial survey on attitudes towards democracy in the Americas in 2021, Vanderbilt University’s LAPOP research laboratory found that half of Jamaicans (50 per cent) considered security to be the country’s most pressing problem. That was more than two-and-half times the amount who identified the economy as their primary concern. However, only 18 per cent of citizens said they felt insecure in their neighbourhoods, a six percentage point improvement from two years earlier.

Additionally, more than one in five (23 per cent) said that their communities were affected by gangs, an improvement on the 28 per cent of five years previously.

Jamaican gangs, who the police say are involved in various forms of crime, are accused of being the major drivers of the island’s high homicide rate, accounting, according to the police, for 67 per cent of last year’s murders. But that, said Fitz Bailey, the deputy commissioner of police for crime, compares to 80 per cent five years ago. Which was proof, he said, that the constabulary’s anti-gang strategy was working.

“Twenty twenty-four will be a different year for us,” Mr Bailey said. “We will be stepping up our activities against gangs. We will be going after them wherever they are. It doesn’t matter where they hide, we are going to find them.”

This newspaper hopes that the strategies, once executed within the framework of the law and Jamaica’s constitution, work. However, the constabulary faces a problem: the LAPOP surveys consistently show low levels of trust among Jamaicans for the police. In 2021 only 33 per cent said they trusted the police.

ABSENCE OF FAITH

There is, however, a wider absence of faith in the institutions of the state, which impacts on the ability of the government to forge a broad consensus on approaches to the crime problem. And on most other things.

Surveys consistently show that upwards of 70 per cent of Jamaicans believe they live in a corrupt country and that trust in Parliament and politicians is low.

Indeed, one poll published by this newspaper in June indicated that a plurality (44.6 per cent) now felt that politicians were the most corrupt group in the island, outstripping the previous number one – the police (19.7 per cent). They were followed on the corruption perception league table by public sector workers (14.6 per cent).

This perception of politicians wouldn’t have been helped by last year’s concerted assault of the Integrity Commission (IC), the state’s anticorruption watchdog, by government legislators, who proposed changes to weaken the agency.

Mr Holness often declares his adherence to corruption, and his government’s efforts to fight it. Which is good.

He should now go further by making the anticorruption campaign a central mission, and placing it at the heart of the anti-crime strategy. He must declare an absolutely zero-tolerance approach to corruption in the government, where the merest whiff means members are out and the IC and the police called to investigate.

Put differently, a robust and effective anticorruption strategy would build trust in public officials and political leaders, making it easier to mobilise citizens against the perpetrators of other forms of crime, including those involving violence that deepens fear, and a sense of insecurity, among citizens. This requires redefining the anti-crime strategy.

 

 

 

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