Jamaica is not a country of comfortable certainties. Take the recent Braeton shootings where police killed seven youths. Like most people my first reaction was “Yes, seven gunmen less on the streets!” But when some reports cast doubts on the police version of events I began to wonder if it had indeed been a case of extra judicial murder.

Frankly, like the country itself, I still cannot make up my mind. The bleeding heart liberal side of me says that every human being has an equal right to due process. If they come for you in the morning they might come for me in the evening.

But then the iron fisted pragmatist within answers that in violent countries like Jamaica security forces sometimes have to use brute force. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.

Police bashers assert that Jamaican security forces likely kill people at a higher rate than any other democracy. Police boosters maintain that our police have one of the highest death rates in the world. They are both right.

Here is a comparison of American and Jamaican crime and police statistics. (Sources:  U.S. Bureau of Justice, Jamaica Constabulary, Statin)

So Jamaican police kill citizens at over 50 times the rate of their American counterparts. But they are over 27 times as likely to die in the line of duty. American police are 1.2 times as likely to be murdered as the average American. Jamaican police are 4.6 times as likely to be murdered as the average Jamaican.

With a death rate of over 156 per 100,000 being a Jamaican police is simply one of the most dangerous jobs an earth. No wonder so many are leaving the force and recruits are hard to come by. With a death rate like this we are fortunate to have men and women still willing to risk their lives to protect society.

Clearly our police often use excessive violence when it is not necessary. And they need to be more transparent and communicative in their internal investigations. But these statistics make it obvious that when in doubt Jamaican police really have no choice but to shoot first and ask questions later. Police often say that hesitation can mean death, and the figures bear this out. If I was a Jamaican police there is no way that anyone who shoots at me is going to live if I can help it. Why should I give someone who wants to kill me another chance to do so later?

Police detractors say it is the resentment caused by our police’s shoot first and talk later policy that causes gunmen to target them. Some even claim that it is our security force’s brutal attitude that makes Jamaicans brutal. But even when you remove the police completely from the picture Jamaica is an extremely violent place. Our domestic murder rate – which police have nothing to do with - is 10.9 per 100,000. This is 6 times the comparable US rate of 1.8 and almost twice the overall American homicide rate of 5.7.

To say the police are responsible for Jamaica’s violence is blaming the messenger for bad news. For police too are products of their society. Which violent country has a non-violent security force?

Police critics argue that not only are they excessively violent, but that this violence is counter-productive. Unfortunately the statistics suggest otherwise. For while the police killing rate has gone down in Jamaica over the past 20 years, the homicide rate has gone up. (Police killings actually peaked in 1984 when they killed 358 people.)

When Jamaica’s murder rate began to soar in the early 1990s the late Carl Stone publicly stated that if we wanted to get crime under control “police must lick shot”. He argued that a small minority of probably less than 1,000 criminals were responsible for the vast majority of non-domestic murders in Jamaica. Police generally knew who they were, but because of witness intimidation they could not get the evidence to convict. (Incidentally when is there going to be a march protesting the number of witnesses and “informers” killed in this country?) Stone felt that if these known murderers were “eradicated” the homicide rate would plummet.

Now the bleeding heart side of me that holds due process sacred finds this argument horrific. But the egg breaker sees the logic and the statistical evidence. As the recent clash between Jamaicans For Justice and the Police Support Action Committee show, the nation is similarly divided.

But there is another solution. We could adopt the US policy of locking up more people. For while the rate of US imprisonment has soared since 1980, its homicide rate has plummeted.

Naturally a lot of other factors were involved – the economic boom, progressive policing, and changing age demographics. But who can look at this chart and argue that putting more people behind bars does not cut crime? And while the 1999 US incarceration rate in 476 per 100,000, the Jamaican rate is 127 and has actually declined since 1980.

If Jamaica wants to cut its murder rate drastically in the near term it will have to take drastic action. Naturally any long run crime reduction plan must include education, judicial reform, proper police training, and economic growth. Yet not only are these generational solutions, many businessmen insist that our economy cannot prosper until crime falls. 

Even then poverty alone does not make countries violent. South Africa is the richest country in Africa but has one of its highest murder rates. And many countries poorer than Jamaica have only a fraction of our crime.

Now one known factor in societal violence is fatherlessness, and Jamaica likely has the highest rate of absent fatherhood on earth. Certainly there is no society with an 85% out of wedlock birth rate and where less than 50% of children have registered fathers that has a low murder rate. Until we face up to this reality our propensity to violence will always be with us.

In the mean time we are left with three choices – keep living with one of the planet’s highest murder rates, adopt the Carl Stone solution and eradicate known murderers, or lock up people in huge numbers like the US. Jamaica is not a country of comfortable certainties. changkob@hotmail.com