http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060917/focus/focus2.html
Published: Sunday | September 17, 2006

Crime as a career - repeat offenders are 80 per cent of arrests, cops say - The STAR, September 4, 2006.

"Repeat offenders contribute to over 80 per cent of crime locally, according to police. And despite rehabilitation programmes in prisons and extensive periods of incarceration, they choose to stick to their illegal ways" ... "some men are simply unable to be rehabilitated," said a courts office worker.

"Most of the persons we are now arresting are repeat offenders," explained Inspector Clayton Ritchie. "We (police) get the impression that these criminals are just getting fat and waiting to come out to commit more crime," charges Sup. (Derrick 'Cowboy') Knight."

Studies all over the world agree that a small minority of repeat offenders carry out the vast majority of crimes. In the U.S. for instance Sampson and Laub have shown that irremediable 'predators' who make up maybe 10 per cent of criminals commit over 50 per cent of crimes.

So what do you do with repeat offenders who prey on innocent people and show no interest in rehabilitation? The American solution is simple and straightforward - put them away for life. Sure ultra bleeding heart liberals bleat about 'human right violations'. But the U.S. populace clearly feels that the right of the 99 per cent who are law-abiding citizens to walk around in safety outweighs the rights of the less than one per cent who wish to keep on committing felonies indefinitely.

US incarceration rates

In 1974 Jamaica and the U.S.A. had similar murder and incarceration rates - roughly 10 murders and 150 prisoners per 100,000 persons. In 2005 America's incarceration rate was over four times that of Jamaica's, and its murder rate was less than one tenth of ours.

There are many reasons for these changes. But undoubtedly a main factor has been U.S. policies such as mandatory prison sentences for violent crimes and 'three strikes you're out' laws, meaning that anyone convicted of three felonies is jailed for life.

Since it got 'tough on crime' in 1980, the U.S. prison population has soared and its murder rate plummeted. Voters there clearly think this a good trade-off, as no 'soft on crime' American politicianhas any chance of being elected. A 'three strikes' policy would almost certainly be as effective and popular in Jamaica as in the United States And it's surely preferable to the increasingly common 'thief fe dead' lynch mob alternative.

Having the world's highest incarceration rate rather makes a mockery of America's 'land of the free' boast. But that doesn't bother me when I visit the U.S. and am able to stroll around in relaxed safety. What really irritates me is being unable to walk 10 yards in the land of my birth without constantly looking around for fear of being robbed or assaulted. And I hardly think I'm being paranoid considering our paradise island has the planet's worst homicide rate.

'Jamaica can't afford more prisons' is at the best of times a penny wise pound foolish argument. It sounds especially ridiculous in light of the U.S. $40 million plus recently wasted at Sandals Whitehouse. And that was only this year's annual scandal. In 2005 over JA $2 billion went unaccounted for at the National Solid Waste Management Agency. Similar huge amounts vanished previously at Netserv and Operation Pride.

Suppose even one tenth of all that money squandered - or put into numbered Swiss accounts - had been spent on modern crime fighting technology and building prisons to lock away repeat offenders? The crime rate would have plummeted, big spending tourists and foreign investment would have poured in, and educated Jamaicans flocking home would have given us a rejuvenating 'brain injection'. In short the economy would probably have boomed and grown at four per cent or more a year instead of the miserable one per cent or so we have averaged over the past 15 years. We would then have ample money to fix our ailing education and health systems and potholed roads. Prosperity always begins with peace.

Prison is a bargain

Sceptics scoff that, "We must build schools and hospitals and not waste money feeding criminals!" But studies show that, up to a certain point, prison is a bargain. As a May 12 2004 London Times article (http://www.civitas.org.uk/pubs/prisonValue.php) put it,

"If we take into account the full social and economic cost of allowing persistent offenders to roam free, prison is a bargain. Even on very cautious assumptions, for every £1 spent on prison, we would save at least £1.07 and it could be over £12 ... One [U.S.] study by Professor John Dilulio estimated that the annual cost of keeping a criminal in jail is $25,000 and the total social and economic cost to society (including policing, insurance, injuries, replacing stolen property, and household expenditure on security measures) of allowing the median offender to remain at large is $70,098. The resulting cost-benefit ratio is 25,000:70,098 or 2.80."

Since Jamaica's global reputation is so crucial for attracting - or repelling - foreign visitors and overseas investment, crime likely has an even bigger comparative economic and social cost here. Considering every international report on Jamaica starts by mentioning our murder rate, it's amazing that we get as many tourists and investors as we do. But imagine how many people would come here if we had a reputation for safety like say Barbados!

A 1981-1996 comparative study of U.K. and U.S. crime rates also showed that the U.S. crime rate fell as the risk of imprisonment rose. Conversely, the U.K. crime rate rose as the risk of prison receded. As one writer says, "The conclusive evidence may not impress the modern ideological social reformer. But the facts do seem, shall we say, inescapable." (http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=090506A)

Since 1989 Jamaica's murder rate has more than tripled, yet not a single new prison has been built. This cannot make sense. We not only had the world's highest murder rate in 2005, we probably had the planet's lowest ratio of prisoners to recorded violent crimes. The studies above suggest these statistics are directly related.

The 25 per cent drop in murders to date over last year is very heartening. No doubt Operation Kingfish has contributed tremendously. Wherever 'dons' have been removed, crime has fallen dramatically. This clearly disproves the 'if you take them out they will just grow back' theory.

But we are still on track for 1,250 plus homicides, which would be the second highest level on record and probably leave us in the world's worst murder rate top three. So while we seem to be slowly getting crime under control, Jamaica remains a far away from giving its citizens the feeling of safety and freedom I've felt walking the streets of America or Britain or even Cuba or China.

'Three strikes' laws

Now 'three strikes' laws are not a be all and end all in fighting crime. There are many other areas of concern, such as giving police proper equipment - they are currently short of an estimated 5,000 bullet proof vests and helmets. But given Jamaica's world leading rate of absentee fatherhood, a syndrome universally linked to criminality, putting away repeat offenders for good must be a necessary if not sufficient condition for permanently reducing our homicide levels. And I've never met a police officer that didn't agree 100 percent. As one recently remarked to me

"Give us a proceeds of crimes bill, a computerised DNA database with appropriate equipment and legislation, mandatory 'three strikes' laws and additional prison space to keep chronic repeat offenders in jail for life, and I guarantee you our murder rate would drop by a half in two years".

As far as I see it, the man is talking pure sense. Why are none of our politicians listening to people like him?