US nudges Jamaica on putting away crime lords
Published:Tuesday | December 8, 2020 | 12:15 AM
Jamaica’s perceived failure to successfully prosecute high-profile criminals and other lords of corruption remains a major concern for Washington, deputy chief of mission at the United States Embassy, John McIntyre, has said.
America has long been critical of Jamaican governments for not tagging crimes on well-known actors, including those with political cover.
“You can arrest folks, but if they do not go to jail, it does not really do as much, so that is a huge focus for us now because we have given a lot of assistance in policing, and we will continue to do that, but in terms of prosecutions, that is exactly what we are focusing on now,” the US official told reporters during a press briefing at the US Embassy in Kingston on Monday.
In its International Narcotics Control Strategy Report released in March this year, the US authorities said that Jamaican law enforcement, prosecutors and the judiciary lacked sufficient resources and training to investigate and prosecute financial crimes efficiently and effectively.
Some of Jamaica’s most-feared gangsters, such as Tivoli Gardens don Christopher Coke, have only faced the long arm of the law through extradition, invoking criticisms that the country has often delegated tough prosecutorial action to Washington.
Prosecutors have teamed up with the police force to send away some criminal players, such as Uchence Wilson last week, through the anti-gang legislation, but there is lingering impatience that crippling blows have not been dealt to transnational figures.
Monday’s press briefing came on the heels of a December 3 Jamaica Strategic Dialogue in which United States Undersecretary for Political Affairs David Hale and Jamaica’s Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith engaged in bilateral talks.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) and the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service. With the signing of the MoU, Jamaica became the 12th country to join USTDA’s Global Procurement Initiative.
Meanwhile, Yvonne McCalla Sobers, human rights advocate, has argued that it appears that people engaged in corrupt practices locally are acting with impunity, not fearing repercussions from the Integrity Commission or any other body established to tackle corruption.
“Corruption has almost become something that is part of the landscape, where everybody does it,” she told The Gleaner on Monday.
Asked to comment on the fight against corruption in Jamaica, McCalla Sobers said that even as new allegations emerged, “it is like a nine-day wonder where people chat, chat, and then there is nothing”.
McCalla Sobers said that with allegations of corruption in the public sector, the country need to demand more from the Integrity Commission “because every act of corruption deprives another child of a tablet, another ill person of a bed in hospital,” and prevents a farmer from taking his crop to the market because there is no money to fix the roads.
On the question of successfully prosecuting serious crimes, McCalla Sobers said there was need for closer working ties between the police and the prosecution.
“The police should know very clearly what they need to bring to the table in order to secure a conviction,” she added.
She said the police often feel satisfied with declaring a crime “cleared up”, noting that in some instances the perpetrator was “around the corner beating his chest because the crime has been blamed on the wrong person”.