Caribbean policing is now caught between a series of forces, the major ones being the rising rate of serious crimes, relentless public pressures for Caribbean governments ”to do something quickly,” the increasing politicization of crime, low public confidence in the police, and governments’ hurried quests for effective and corruption-free policing.
Largely derived from a history of slavery and indentured labor in the eighteenth century and mores in the nineteenth century, Caribbean states have also inherited, especially from the British, a very authoritarian and centralized colonial policing structure. Part of this policing culture was further derived from the need to protect and serve the property and safety of plantation owners, mainly British, some French and Spanish. The social and economic interests between the masses and the colonial rulers were therefore quite divergent, so Caribbean policing was inevitably a rather unfriendly, very coercive exercise across the colonial Caribbean. To some extent, it still is even though most Caribbean states are now politically independent.
The three major issues in Caribbean policing are (1) governance, (2) police effectiveness, and (3) police-citizen relationships. Before dealing with these issues, it is helpful to clarify what is the ”Caribbean,” at least as used in this article. The Caribbean region is located in the Caribbean Sea, bounded by the United States in the north, Central America on the west, the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and having two of its states (Guyana and Suriname) lodged in its southern border of South America.
The Caribbean region consists of twenty-one states that exhibit considerable diversity in political, social, legal, and judicial structure. Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are U.S. dependencies, while Bermuda is still under British jurisdiction. French influence is still present in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and, to a great extent, the Dominican Republic. Fourteen of these Caribbean states, mainly English-speaking and part of the Commonwealth, have formed themselves into a legal regional body called the Caribbean Community (Caricom).
The information provided in this article will generally refer to the following fourteen states with a total population of about seven million: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. In addition, some reference will be made to Haiti, a French-speaking country, with a population of more than seven and a half million.
Apart from trade and economic cooperation, there is increasing movement among the English-speaking Caribbean toward common policing and security strategies, a movement no doubt inspired by the serious crime facing the region, especially drug trafficking, kidnapping, and terrorism threats. Even once peaceful, tourist-dependent Barbados is now experiencing an upsurge of crime and visible public discomfort. The governments of these English-speaking Caribbean states have established a Caricom Task Force on Crime and Security that helps shape policy recommendations to these governments. One of the important recommendations to help improve police-citizen relations is the establishment of a National Crime Commission in each Caribbean state; so far only St. Lucia and Barbados have implemented this.
The complex challenges of effective policing and crime reduction are very important for the economic well-being of Caribbean states, especially those smaller states that depend almost exclusively on tourism. The repeated failures during the last twenty years of numerous ”crime committees” and inquiries to improve police effectiveness help to diminish the credibility of the relevant authorities in the matters of policing and national security.
Two major, related Caribbean initiatives have recently been undertaken. The first is the Caribbean Institute for Security and Law Enforcement Studies (CISLES), a centralized training and educational police center located in Barbados. The second is a Regional Crime and Research Institute at the University of the West Indies, which has also recently established a graduate program in criminology and criminal justice at its St. Augustine campus in Trinidad and Tobago (through its Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice) for police officers and other members of the protective services across the Caribbean.
Governance
Police departments in the Commonwealth Caribbean are in varying degrees under the control of a civilian minister of government. The commissioner of police, who heads the police department (also called police force in St. Lucia, police service in Trinidad and Tobago, and constabulary force in Jamaica), must be first approved or directly appointed by the country’s cabinet. This matter of appointing a police commissioner has become a controversial public issue. On one side there are strong views that the government should have a direct role in such an appointment since it is the government that is ultimately held responsible for crime management and crime reduction. On the other hand, there are perhaps stronger views that the office of police commissioner and the police service for that matter should be kept as far as possible from political control and interference. This debate is now light in the smaller states, such as St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Grenada, but quite intense in the larger states of Jamaica and particularly Trinidad and Tobago.
It is necessary to note two related issues. One, the relationship between the political directorate and the police service depends on what the respective constitutions allow. In the smaller states, there is no constitutionally independent body to appoint, promote, or discipline police officers. The body that performs such functions largely operates as an administrative body and under the hand of the relevant government minister. Generally, the cabinet appoints the members of this body. In Trinidad and Tobago, it is different. The constitution established a Police Service Commission whose members are appointed by the country’s president after consultations with the prime minister and leader of the opposition. On several occasions, the prime minister has tried to impress on the Police Service Commission the need to dismiss a police commissioner, but the commission resisted amidst intense public controversy.
The second issue is the low confidence that the populations in the various states have in the police service. Overall, survey data show that across the Caribbean more than 50% of the population have low confidence in their respective police departments, a situation that no doubt creates great apprehension over any sign of political control over police departments.
The jurisdictional issue is different from that of the United States where Congress and its oversight committees have statutory powers of inquiry over the FBI, CIA, and other policing and intelligence agencies. In other words, the countervailing and even veto powers of the U.S. Congress are not present in the legislatures of the Caribbean. The concept and practice of the separation of powers are different. These Caribbean legislatures (the parliaments) function as pale imitations of the British Westminster-type system of government, that is, with the country’s cabinet generally having numerical and statutory domination over each legislature. And so, in the smaller Caribbean states particularly, the cabinet, which is itself dominated by the prime minister, virtually governs the police. Even in the larger states, where there is an independent Police Service Commission, the prime minister must first give his approval to the service commission’s appointment of a police commissioner or a deputy commissioner of police.
Quite interestingly, however, in two larger countries, Jamaica and Trinidad/ Tobago, there is a slight but discernable move toward increased transparency in police governance, mainly through the constitutional establishment of a Joint Parliamentary Select Committee to inquire and report on the Police Service Commission and the agencies falling under this commission, such as the police service. The select committee reports are presented to parliament, and the minister of national security is required to respond within ninety days.
Public Confidence
The second issue, low public confidence in Caribbean police, is mixed with the public’s rather high fear of crime across the Caribbean. Again, survey data show that as much as 50% of the population is afraid to go out at night, with significant proportions also afraid of being ”murdered,” ”kidnapped,” or having their homes ”broken into.” Then there are strong suspicions and even validating court cases that point to police corruption. For example, in Jamaica, in early 2005, the police commissioner publicly complained about ”drug and bribery” corruption existing among some officers in the Jamaica Constabulary Force and pledged to clean up his force. In Guyana, around the same time, alleged complicity between a government minister regarding police brutality has led to an official inquiry. This reminds us of the infamous ”mongoose gang,” a group of officers used in the 1970s by Grenada’s then prime minister against his political opponents.
In Trinidad and Tobago, the Police Service Commission, under a new chairman, and the cabinet itself have expressed strong views about ”cleaning up the police service.” The Joint Parliamentary Select Committee is also pursuing this matter because it has such serious implications for improving public confidence and police accountability and for facilitating the supply of strategic information by citizens for effective policing.
Police Effectiveness
When detection and especially conviction rates are used as indicators of police effectiveness, the picture is not very encouraging and certainly shows a need for quick improvement. The detection rate for serious crimes generally ranges from 25% to 40% of reported crimes. The conviction rate for reported serious crimes is generally between 10% and 15%. These crime statistics imply that thousands of criminals are either not caught by the police or are acquitted for a number of reasons, the disturbing ones being the unreliability, inefficiency, and even the total absence of police evidence in many cases. In fact, citizens’ complaints against the police in all Caribbean states, especially the larger states of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana, have been increasing and without the expeditious adjudication required.
In fact, several attempts are now being made, especially in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, St. Lucia, and Barbados, to improve police effectiveness mainly through legislation, seeking foreign expertise, training, and providing increased amounts of physical, technical, and manpower resources. The Caribbean country with the smallest population is St. Kitts and Nevis having a 450-strong police service. The largest, Jamaica has a population of more than 2.5 million and a police service with 13,000 now. Though Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago have recently made significant increases in the size of their respective police departments (Jamaica from an estimated 10,000 to 13,000, Trinidad and Tobago from an estimated 7,000 to 8,000), the police-citizen ratio looks quite reasonable from an international viewpoint. For example, in St. Lucia it is 1:285, Barbados 1:166, Jamaica 1:200, Trinidad and Tobago 1:162, Guyana 1:212, Grenada 1:128, and Bahamas 1:120. Haiti is understandably lopsided with a ratio of 1:1,153. Given its very unsettled political condition, Haiti is crippled by waves of police violence and partisanship, political rivalries, and escalating crime and civil strife. In Jamaica, political patronage to gang leaders has perpetuated ”garrison violence” in several districts.
The alliance between politicians and gang leaders in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, in particular, has been severely criticized by civic organizations because it subverts effective policing.
The current means of recording, compiling, reporting, and analyzing crime data within the police departments across the Caribbean is not very effective for data-driven day-to-day operations, police accountability, and policy development. In fact, there have been repeated complaints from researchers, opposition members of parliament, and even international funding agencies (for example, IDB, World Bank) about the inefficient, nontranspar-ent, and very inadequate manner of collecting and reporting police statistics. All this is apart from the fact that, similar to other countries, many crimes, both serious and minor, are not reported to the police across Caribbean states.
The official crime statistics therefore do not tell the full story of crime and policing in the Caribbean. For example, one study found that more than ”60%” of robbery, break-in, burglary, and dwelling-house larceny crimes—as a category—do not get reported to the police. A similar proportion of rapes, incest, and domestic violence also do not get reported. For drug abuse and trafficking, the unreported figure is more than 70%, and growing especially since the use of cocaine and marijuana is also on the increase across the Caribbean. Two related solutions have been made to improve both the reliability and validity of police statistics. The first is the systematic use of victimization surveys, which has already begun in Barbados, and secondly the establishment of professionally independent, well-staffed, technologically supported, and easily accessible crime analysis and policy development centers.
The police commissioners from all Caribbean states, singly and collectively through the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police, have admitted that traditional law enforcement has not been effective in reducing the crime rate and increasing public confidence in the police. During the last ten years, each Caribbean state, with vacillating amounts of financial, manpower, and training support, has adopted community-oriented policing as an alternative or supplementary approach to traditional law enforcement. With much ambivalence still residing in police operations, community-oriented policing has not been effectively incorporated, practiced, or evaluated in the Caribbean.
Several training programs and citizen surveys have shown viable support from citizens and junior officers for community-oriented policing. However, the managerial support and operational configuration required for the essential practices of community policing, beyond the rhetorical stage, are largely lacking across the Caribbean. This deficiency is accompanied by quick relapses into traditional law enforcement. Such relapse is tightly connected to the mounting public concerns over serious crime and subsequent public pressures, especially from the business sector, in all Caribbean states for quick, drastic law enforcement.
