Herbert Gayle | No Mary Poppins’ magic …Ten suggestions to solving our violence problem

Recently I presented at a Government-funded event. At the end, a foreign-born Jamaican woman came across to me and started singing: “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down...in a most delightful way.”

She then asked, “Dr. Gayle, why you don’t give people the facts with a bit of sugar? I see why you come off as controversial to the immature and feeble. You are no Mary Poppins; but these people are like children awaiting a miracle to solve the violence. Thank you, though, for your efforts; and I beg you do not give up. We need to grow up.”

Mary Poppins could solve every problem related to children by being sweet to them and through the use of magic.

Jamaica is a very troubled adolescent country; and successive governments have repeatedly offered Mary Poppins-type magic or quick fix policies – just in time for an upcoming election. This usually makes the ‘children’ happy and the party in power happier. Rather than address the violence problem at the core, politicians have found creative ways to help Jamaicans adapt to the harsh violence that exist.

There are two types of sugar for our examination: brown and granulated. The brown sugar is comparable to the dozens of special squads we have used in the past. We normally create one after a spike in murders; and it normally gets some results just in time for an upcoming election. Whenever the violence is very graphic, the special squads are usually combined with states of emergency to effect more dramatic magic.

Recently, the Government of Jamaica invested in more expensive and refined sugar called zones of special operations (ZOSO), combined with prolonged ‘limited’ states of emergency that cost hundreds of millions per annum.

Like the cheaper brown sugar, it is only a stop-gap or temporary measure. All stop-gaps create false hope and waste of time and resources that should have been invested in primary solutions such as education and training.

Successive governments have been playing this game of suppression for 46 years, since 1974. The homicide rate is now four times higher than when the game started. Clearly suppression does not work. There is yet a bigger problem. Stop-gap measures are addictive. They help to get governments re-elected; and they do give naive and desperate people some quick relief. This is why we call suppression strategies ‘morphine’.

We have wasted 46 years with this morphine, this Mary Poppins’ spoonful of sugar that has helped us bear the violence rather than address it. Imagine if successive governments continue to play this game with you for another 46 years.

I am certainly no Mary Poppins. My training forces me to strongly suggest that we start the long journey of reducing violence in Jamaica and stop wasting the future of our children. With its average homicide rate of 48 per 100,000 since the year 2000, Jamaica is not ‘policeable’. A country becomes ‘policeable’ only after certain social or development planks are put in place.

Currently, the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) and Jamaica Defense Force (JDF) are simply ‘holding the fort until reinforcement arrives’. They cannot hold on forever. Suppression is a pressure cooker. It will blow!

CRITICAL SOCIAL CHANGES

The following social changes are critical for us to create a platform from which the police can become effective:

1. Change the sad status of young males.

In the last two decades, men have become the poorest people in Jamaica. While some scholars have focused on the fact that men dominate the richest quintile (not dark-skinned males), my concern as a violence expert is that they also dominate the poorest quintile (these are dark-skinned).

Professor Anderson explained how this happened very eloquently. Check out her work. She explained that Jamaica shifted from labour-intensive industries (which favoured men without tertiary education) to service and technical investments (which requires education and training).

Today, about 40 per cent of all inner city males between age six and 18 are out of school and/or unemployed. We need to dry up this pool from which gangs and organised criminals recruit so easily.

The 2020 Male Fertility Study (not yet published) show that 42 per cent of Jamaican men are either unemployed or untrained – not ready for the 21st century. However, the data show that these untrained males are still expected to be the main earner of the family.

The Government of Jamaica cannot shoot or SOE its way out of this mess. Provide young men with a reason to live. This must focus on education and training. Remember that people who have low or no ontological security (who nah live fi nuttin) cannot be contained. Many Jamaican males live in a state of social suicide.

2. Find the families that produce troubled youth and stabilise them through training and employment.

Note the following from our database on high-risk youth:

- Only 13 per cent of violent youth come from homes with basic stability – have both parents and they do not fight (four per cent), have a well-supported sole mother household (three per cent), have extended family with enough persons employed to rescue them (six per cent).

- Six per cent of violent youth grew up on their own or move around between foster and/or state care.

- 61 per cent of violent youth grew up without any biological parent.

- 81 per cent grew up without any consistent supervision.

- 11 per cent grew up with a brother or sister.

3. Ban and police flogging and psychological torture in schools.

Provide mass education to teachers to allow them to use alternative techniques to effect compliance in their classrooms. Most children who are flogged, neglected or psychologically abused at school by teachers are already abused at home. The purpose of the school is to provide a counter-reality for brutalised children, not worsen their plight.

4. Expand parenting education to the poorest.

Jamaica has made tangible investments in parenting. There are even manuals done by Janet Brown and others that are available. The problem is that the investment in parenting in the poorest ecologies is infinitesimal. People like to help the people that will produce quick results. If we are serious, we have to focus on the hardest to reach.

5. Hand over one medium-sized ‘Kingfish’ to MOCA.

Recently a group of students asked 100 youth to rate the corruption level of our public servants (both JLP and PNP). They were to rate them from 1-10, with 10 being the most corrupt. Only 12 per cent gave scores below five out of 10. In a country where citizens take it for granted that government officials are corrupt, there is a problem in doing social marketing for change. Corruption is needed to maintain drug trafficking, gun trading, and scamming, which are used to fuel gang violence. Catching one medium-sized fish would send a signal that the Government is serious about addressing the nexus between organised crime and public servants.

6. Embark on a campaign of gender partnership.

Slow down on the gender competition and conflict. In the 2020 Male Fertility Study, only 23 per cent of men in relationships provided data to show that they partner with women. They knew how to hand over money to women or have conflict with them. In gender conflict, it always seems as if one group is winning. This is a mirage. No fat puppy can be happy around a bunch of hungry ‘maaga’ dogs. The principle of nature is for men and women to work together – not fight each other.

Gender conflict has become a problem; and the war is fueled by local and international groups. Divisions weaken us who are already weak.

7. Push to get more women into Parliament.

In 2002, I learnt that women are better than men as supporters of the vulnerable. My lecturer at SOAS (London) asked each of us to examine the manifesto of five male and five female politicians. When the class project was completed, we found that female policy makers were twice more likely to focus on family and social inclusion than their male counterparts who focused twice more on economics. The problem is that economies depend on social stability. Socially sick countries need women in parliament.

This training impacted me immensely. For the past 18 years I have been on a quiet campaign to get women into parliaments across the LAC (Latin America and the Caribbean). So far I have backed four women, and all have done well. Recently, I started my fifth ‘women into parliament’ project.

The data show that the wealthy men at the top, irrespective of race or colour, do not care about young poor men. The number one support system for vulnerable men comprise mainly of women, especially their mothers and sisters. In recent studies in Montego Bay, Mandeville, Spanish Town, Belize City, and Port of Spain, the data showed that businesswomen were three times more likely to assist young men than businessmen.

8. Redeploy combatants through training and employment.

This will require a violence audit across the country, which will allow us to identify gang combatants. The current Violence Interruption Programme (VIP) does redeployment very effectively with the aid of CSJP. This needs to be expanded.

9. Employ restorative justice to address intra and inter-family war.

The number one problem to focus on is conflict between brothers and male cousins. These males account for more than a half of domestic-related deaths. Focus also on the wider conflict of tenant war – between poor urban families.

10. Create a frame of negotiation with residents of violent inner city communities.

Currently they account for eight per cent of Jamaica’s population but 60 per cent of our murders. In the past, these people have been rewarded by successive governments for pooling votes (garrisonisation). However, they can be similarly influenced to support programmes of training, social learning, and education.

FORGET THE SPOONFUL OF SUGAR

Jamaicans remind me of my neighbour who was poisoned by barracuda in 1976. She went to the doctor, got the medicine and went back to finish eating the poisoned meal of barracuda.

Start facing the fact that we are violent and start the process of reducing our violence by working together. There is no quick fix. What we call quick fixes are only helping successive governments get ready for an upcoming election.

The longer we wait to start, the deeper we get into this costly game of suppression now – results now. Let us create the social stability needed to make us ‘policeable’ then focus on dramatic police reforms.

- Herbert Gayle, PhD, is an anthropologist of social violence. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com