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Caribbean Crime Wave Causing "Decline in Development"

In the Caribbean, crime and lack of economic opportunity are as inseparable as two sides of the same coin, as impossible to isolate as the proverbial chicken and egg. That was how criminology professor Marilyn Jones cast the interdependent relationship of crime and development during the second day of the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police conference Tuesday at the Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort and Spa.
Jones said that while crime is often blamed on poverty and lack of opportunity, crime can just as certainly ensure poverty and thwart opportunity – resulting in the tragic Catch-22 that actually has Caribbean countries and territories backsliding down the development scale they have worked so hard to climb.
Citing statistics showing the dramatic increase in violent crime throughout the region, she said, “The past decade can be characterized as a period of decline” in development.
Jones, on loan from the California State University at Sacramento to her native Jamaica, said the shared regional development goals, such as universal primary education, poverty reduction, gender equality and increased infant mortality rest upon the bedrock fundamentals of democratic governance, respect for human rights and peace and security. But how can you have the one set without the other?
Therein lies the challenge, she said. Calling them the “interdependent determinants of development,” she said all of the goals must be addressed simultaneously – a lofty goal that might have seemed like pie in the academic sky to a room full of streetwise police types Tuesday if she hadn’t brought it down to solid examples.
As did the deputy commissioner of the Jamaican constabulary who spoke Monday, Jones cited the bloody clashes in Kingston as an example of how poverty nurtures fertile ground for crime to take root and thrive, and how rampant crime can drive away business and tourism, resulting in more poverty.
“If I’m planning a vacation and I’m having a choice,” she said, “you wouldn’t necessarily come to the region at this time.”
She warned that to industries and tourists, the region is looked at as one homogeneous region – the Caribbean – and problems in one locale infect the rest.
Winning does not just mean catching the bad guys, she said.
“We throw resources at law enforcement,” she said, but “a lot of the issues that would actually address crime are not police issues.”
All over the world, she said, efforts to empower women and improve their capability to raise their children and have a say in communities have paid off.
And often the women of violence-stricken communities don’t wait for outside help or empowerment. They do creative things like withhold sex from their men until they put the guns down.
While Jones’ suggestion had the whole room full of law enforcement officials chuckling nervously, she said, “No, really,” and cited success stories from Liberia to Colombia to ancient Athens, where women have withheld sex to force peace.
Such necessary reversals of fortune upon the actors of violence reflect the general reversal of fortune as a region reputed as idyllic and peaceful has recently earned the reputation of most violent region in the world – a perception given gravitas by headlines and images like the ones flooding in from Jamaica.
She said it’s a time for ideals and values and a recognition that the people of the Caribbean cannot develop if they don’t feel safe.
“When it’s the hardest to respect human rights is when it’s most important to do that,” she said.
Offering a spark of hope, Jones cited a passage she found in a U.N. document on development: “No country, no city, no community is immune (to violence),” she said, quoting Nelson Mandela. “But neither are we powerless.”
Speakers Tuesday also included a Drug Enforcement Administration analyst, a VIPD ballistics analyst and former FEMA Director David Paulson, who spoke on disaster preparedness.
The conference continues Wednesday with a panel on police corruption, led by the U.S. Attorney Ronald Sharpe, and a presentation on anti-gang efforts in the U.S. Virgin Islands by Lavelle Campbell, the V.I. Gang Violence Awareness Coordinator, among others.
The plenary session, which is open to the public, begins at 9 a.m.

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