Youth emergency

Robert Buddan, Contributor

The recent state of emergency (SOE) inevitably targeted youth. It was a particular threat to the human rights of our youth. Young people between 14 and 24 are those most involved as victims and perpetrators of street crime. Persons 35 and older are probably the greatest perpetrators of business and public-sector fraud and corruption. There is no state of emergency for them. Yet, they cost the economy billions of dollars. They cost the world trillions of dollars.

The youth are not in positions of power and authority in government, politics, business, or the social sector to cause such costly losses. They are not in positions of power and authority in the family to inculcate proper family values. They are often family-less. Even so, they are not blameless. All of us must take responsibility. But the SOE seems to disproportionately place the blame on the youth and as a consequence, the violence of the solution.

I single out the youth because during this time of Emancipation and Independence celebrations we should be reminded that nation building must begin with children, the youth, and the families and communities in which they grow. Nation building is not primarily about what the State or the party can do. State and party can facilitate, enable, mediate, adjudicate and regulate. They must be about empowering people to be the best they can be. But people must take responsibility. The SOEs we have had over the years, before and after Independence, signify failures of the State, party, family and community systems to take responsibility. These signify failures in the nation-building process itself. Youths are often not made to feel a part of the nation except when they do well, and generally that is in sports and entertainment, not business and politics.

I single out the youth also because of the particular disadvantages they face. Since they have accumulated the least experience to go with whatever education and training they have, they are the last hired and first fired. Because of the generational cycle of politics and business, they do not yet have the power and authority in parliaments, party executives and boardrooms until they enter their forties. When an economy is doing badly, the opportunities for social mobility freeze and the hopes that opportunities bring go cold. When there is a world economic crisis and anti-immigration prejudices, the opportunities to travel and get work elsewhere become scarce. Remittances from those who have travelled and worked overseas slow to a trickle.

TRAPPED YOUTH

Under these conditions, youths are trapped in their communities. Enough of them can't move up and move out. Our peace management and social workers need to study the unknown impact of present global changes on society, economy and politics and on youth. The old knee-jerk SOEs did not work in the 1960s, and the 1970s, and won't work now.

When 4,000 mostly young people are detained and less than three per cent are charged, it means that 97 per cent have been detained without good reason. Put another way, 97 per cent are innocent youth, judging from the sample and the evidence presented. Why then extend the SOE unless there is some political mileage to gain, or to plot, and class prejudices to serve. Nation building requires evidence-based reasoning. If we don't have the police science needed to discover the nature of evidence and the investigative technology to trace it, then we need to build that up first. We also need a governance system based on justice reforms. We must implement what we have.

CLASS ISSUES

On his radio programme on July 28, Bruce Golding said that an SOE was not a good long-term solution for Jamaica and he would not seek to impose a new one, unless extraordinary circumstances merited it. It was neither good, he said, for a society to become accustomed to living under emergency powers, or for the security forces to rely on those powers routinely for crime fighting. I would add that the Constitution was framed with precisely those concerns in mind. An SOE can become a collective pill to ease a society's anxiety over crime, without treating the problem and making it go away.

So, if Golding agrees that the SOE could not be the be-all and end-all, why the continuous beating up against those who, in my view, correctly opposed its extension, and asked for human rights grounds of accountability for any continuance? When the People's National Party government resisted calls for an SOE in 2003, Golding also objected to it on the very grounds those who opposed his own offer of an extension in July did. In The Gleaner of October 9, 2003, headlined, "We should all resist a state of emergency", Golding made a distinction between those from the privileged classes, who, if detained, could simply make a phone call and be released, and the poor, "most of whom were no less law-abiding" who are locked up, processed and released because there was no evidence against them.

These must be the 97 per cent referred to above. The detention of citizens, Golding said, only allows the policemen who have issues with people to brutalise them; and for politicians to deal with their opponents. All of this, I submit, is exactly why opponents of the extension of the latest SOE have taken the position they have. The only difference now is that Golding's parliamentary vote for an extension was in true flip-flop fashion, and is consistent with what the privileged classes desire. Opponents of the SOE are insisting that things be viewed from the standpoint of the poor in their communities, as Golding was saying then.

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

It is time to get serious about crime fighting. This means getting serious about community development, youths and families. These are the ingredients for nation building. We might begin by consulting our own Report of the Committee on Crime and Violence (2002). This report recommended greater bipartisanship, better political representation and community policing. The SOE addresses none of these. Another good study to consult is the Joint Report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Latin America and Caribbean Region of the World Bank, entitled, "Crime, Violence and Development' (March 2007). Once again, none of its recommendations are a part of the SOE. In fact, it is critical of paramilitary approaches to crime fighting like the SOE. Instead, it speaks of rights-based approaches to violence against women, property crime, drug trafficking, and youth crime and violence.

Let us separate backward thinking from progressive thinking. Businessman Patrick Casserly, who is newly elected president of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce, has said something the country would do well to heed. The Observer of July 23, echoed him to say that the business community has a duty to rescue the young men and women who are falling through the cracks of society. State of Emergency or not, Casserly believes, we all have a responsibility to ensure that the least fortunate among us are not left behind. Otherwise, we Jamaicans will find ourselves in a perpetual state of emergency and, by extension misery. Portia Simpson Miller cited this sentiment at her party's National Executive Council on July 25. At least she has taken heed of them, and them of her.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm or columns@gleanerjm.com