The gun crisis

Gun-related crimes are the main challenge to law and order in Jamaica. This type of deviance is the primary source of fear and threat to the citizenry.

The figures are staggering. For the 10-year period 2003-2013, more than 10,000 Jamaicans have been murdered by the gun, with 75 per cent of all murders committed with illegal guns. Eighty-four per cent of the approximately 250 gangs operating across the island are perpetrators of violence involving the use of firearms. The gangs need guns to kill, enforce their existence, and to threaten.

The impact has been far-reaching. Brand Jamaica is suffering untold injury while community safety, business confidence, the use of public space, public transportation and the use, generally, of public facilities are all at risk.

The availability of and use of guns is facilitated by the drug trade - there is an inescapable nexus between guns and drugs.

There are 29 drugs-for-guns syndicates operating between Jamaica and other source countries for firearms (Haiti, Central and South America). Two hundred and fifty violent gangs also represent high demand for illegal guns. Gunrunning is a business.

Given these facts, what is to be done? The police have consistently stated that the removal of gun offenders from the streets has a strong and positive impact on the community. This is evidenced by the significant downturn in crimes and improved security in communities terrorised by persons such as Christopher Coke, Donald Phipps, and Joel Andem, among others, as a result of their incarceration.

The gun-crime situation, in particular murders and shootings, has evolved beyond a law-enforcement issue to a national-security crisis. In 2009, the murder rate in Jamaica was 62 in every 100,000 of the population, placing us as the world's second-most murderous country on earth.

A crisis situation requires swift, relevant, decisive and effective response. It requires intense and coordinated focus and the resolve of all within the criminal-justice system to give priority attention to gun offenders.

Potential offenders

Jamaica requires a gun project which seeks to deter offenders from continuing and potential offenders from getting involved with gun crimes.

Despite the police seizing over 600 guns and arresting more than 1,000 gun offenders each year, the problem remains because of bail, drawn-out trials and light sentences, all of which restore to gunmen the freedom they need to acquire more guns, kill, maim and escalate fear in the society.

As part of the gun project, the police strongly recommend that gun cases be tried as a matter of national priority, that bail be denied, that a mandatory minimum sentence be imposed and that there is an offer of reduced sentence as an incentive for guilty pleas and the provision of information that can help the police disrupt the supply chain and arrest gun and ammo suppliers.

These initiatives will go a long way in assisting to quell the use of guns in the commissioning of crimes. Let us act now!

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