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Published: Sunday | May 22, 2005

DISMANTLE THE garrisons! The cry is getting louder from all quarters. Significantly Bruce Golding's request to the Prime Minister for all parties to 'address the question of garrison politics' is the first such call I can remember from a senior politician. It may well represent a watershed event in Jamaican history.

Yet are garrisons primarily a political phenomenon or a social one? Yes they were originally party tools to ensure victory in a constituency. But somewhere along the line the tail began to wag the dog. No politician of any stripe can be happy that so many inner city communities have become dens of murder. But the situation with Jamaica and garrisons has become like that of a man riding a tiger ­ how do you dismount without getting eaten?

Many feel that garrisons have become part of an implicit social contract between the official powers that be and unelected inner city community leaders. It's as if 'uptown' has said to the 'dons': "Make sure the criminals from your areas don't trouble us and we will allow you to rule your communities without interference from the law".

This may be a rough and ready simplification. But it's one which numerous people far more in the know than I ascribe to. A couple years ago when the kidnapping upsurge began in Trinidad I asked some friends in puzzlement why such a trend had never taken place in Jamaica. After all we had a higher level of almost every other type of crime than the twin island republic. So why did you almost never hear of prominent persons or their children being held for ransom here?

Their answer to my question was the iron grip dons had on the poor communities from which most would-be kidnappers originated. It was not in the interest of the dons to trouble any 'big uptown man' because then these big men or their political friends would bring severe pressure to bear on the dons and their fiefdoms. So any 'fryer' who tried such a thing would be tracked down and 'dealt with' for 'trying to mash up people's business'. Well, it's just another of those thousands of theories floating around. But I haven't heard a more convincing argument as to why kidnapping is so comparatively rare in Jamaica.

A MATTER OF CONTROL

Entities only survive if they fulfil a social service. And it's my strong impression that garrisons have not only endured but thrived because they have become a way for the country to control a group of young men who might otherwise be uncontrollable.

The truth is a significant minority of young men in this country can only be described as human wolves. For they seem to have no compassion for fellow human beings and view strangers only as potential victims to be robbed or raped if the opportunity presents itself. The politicians who have allowed so many guns to flood into the country are perhaps no less to blame for our murderous explosion over the past 15 years than those who pull the triggers. But the harsh reality is that Jamaica has the highest murder rate in the world primarily because we have an over abundance of young men who place absolutely no value on their life or anyone else's.

Now it's hard not to feel sorry for our youngsters who have usually never known their father's love and often not even their mothers. What with our absentee fathers and the 'barrel baby' mothers who emigrated to better their offspring's material life, far too many Jamaican children grow up starved of parental love. Even worse, many of them get no real education, often leaving school unable to read or write and without a proper command of the English language. The end product is a huge cohort of ruthless unemployable young men who have nothing to contribute to society and know only the jungle law of brute force.

Who can blame such youths for feeling bitter and cheated? Smug and comfortable right wingers love to assert that 'There's no free lunch'. But those who have grown up with loving parents who sent us to good schools and encouraged us during difficult times need to realise how lucky we are. None of us choose the circumstances into which we are born, and there but for the grace of God go all of us.

FRIGHTENING

To be sure, a society must in the end accept the consequences of its behaviour. If Jamaican men were more faithful and the women were more circumspect about the emotional and financial commitments of their mates, far fewer of our children would grow up in unstable circumstances. But I see absolutely no sign that Jamaicans have any desire to modify their sexual behaviour in any way.

This country has witnessed many terrible scenes of late. The seeming all-out war on police by gunmen over the past month is frightening. And on an individual level the recent murder of an old schoolmate by extortionists was deeply disturbing. But nothing was so horrifying as the machine gun attack on a bus full of school children. It was without rhyme or reason, and I can only interpret it as an act of men bent on destroying a society they know has failed them.

But to try and understand is not to condone. And I am now fully convinced that unless Jamaica makes a concerted effort to decisively deal with the human wolves in our midst, this nation must eventually slip into the anarchy of a Haiti, Iraq or Uzbekistan. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and times can't get more desperate than having the world's highest murder rate. I have still not joined the 'Let Renato and his men round up every suspected gunman and execute them on the spot' posse. Though frankly incidents like the schoolbus shooting are slowly pushing me into the 'whatever it takes' category.

Yet I still believe that our crime problem can be solved within the accepted boundaries of international law. The U.S. has proven that implementing measures like mandatory sentencing and 'three strikes you're out' while expanding your prison capacity can significantly cut murder rates. If America can do these things, why can't we?

God knows where this country is headed. Certainly when I returned here in 1989 I never dreamt that Jamaica's murder count would go from 414 to 1,445 in 15 years. No other country on earth not at war has seen such a homicide explosion. Which is proof really that the garrison method of crime control simply is not working.

So yes, I support Mr. Golding's call. But I also know that there's a big difference between a river overflowing its banks and the banks bursting. So before we render null the unwritten laws that govern the garrisons, it's imperative that we get the hardcore irredeemables off the streets. Otherwise the entire nation's future will be Spanish Town's present - a society held hostage by wild and savage warring human wolf packs.