Security expert laments business-crime link
Published:Thursday | April 7, 2022 | 12:06 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
George Overton, the director of operations at the Guardsman Group, says that crime in Jamaica has become a business over the past five decades, with the proceeds of various criminal activities being pumped into the country’s legitimate financial structure.
He made the declaration on Wednesday while delivering the keynote address at the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s inaugural security summit at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in Rose Hall, St James. The summit was held under the theme ‘Collective Security – Unity in Action’.
“Cocaine is a part of the underworld activity, part of the organised crime hub that runs in Jamaica, and similarly, we have come to the reality that gunrunning is now a business here in Jamaica,” said Overton, adding that a blind eye has been turned to many of these activities for years.
“I believe Jamaica is on the verge of waking up to the reality that money laundering is a part of the organised crime network in this country. If we all stop and look at how easily scammers have been able to take the funds that they have fleeced from persons and put it into the legitimate financial framework of the country by buying lavish modern fast cars and numerous high-value properties and spending money that makes the wealthiest in Jamaica envious of that kind of spend, ... crime in Jamaica is a business,” Overton added.
The Guardsman boss also identified the neglect of Jamaica’s security, justice, and public-order infrastructure over the last half-century as a main contributor to the country’s crime problem.
“We found ourselves with a security force that was underequipped, under-resourced, undertrained, and with a lack of technology to efficiently carry out the task,” he lamented.
“We had a justice system that did not have sufficient courts to meet the rising number of cases that were being put through the system. We had our prisons, which are supposed to be institutions of punishment and reform, deteriorate to the point that we really created a university and networking location for criminal activities. We buried our heads in the sand to the reality of some of the things happening around us.”
In 2017, Justice Minister Delroy Chuck admitted that successive administrations had starved the local justice system of much-needed funds.
At that time, Chuck stated that the lack of resources had impacted the justice sector to the point where it was unable to meet its target of being an enabler and facilitator of economic growth and expansion.
In the meantime, Overton identified the education system as one of several sectors in dire need of reform to redirect the youth from crime. Otherwise, he said, they will continue being easy recruits for organised criminal groups.