The Cayman Islands police recently revealed that over 800 suspect residents of that small island are under the restriction of their liberty, whilst investigations stumble on into the sunset.
Alarming enough for a figure that high, it comes from one of the smallest islands in the Caribbean, coincidentally a British possession. This number is likely to double if you include accused persons before the court as they meander towards some form of justice.
This is unaffected by their $100 million budget dedicated to other corners of law enforcement, but not crime prevention.
This scenario is duplicated throughout the Caribbean with little or no attempt to substantially repair a failing system.
If that were not frightening enough, over 20% of the Cayman Islands have a criminal conviction giving new meaning to the annual Pirates Week.
The recently elected government of those small islands has failed to address a perpetual problem, more shameful given the mass shooting in the constituency of the Premier without substantive youth intervention thereafter.
That government spent some time on their early ascension to office to ensure budgets for their government chauffeurs while some principled ministers refused that office bonus.
This diorama is exhibited throughout the Caribbean at many levels but with the same entrenched, archaic, colonial law enforcement and legal system, the handmaidens of failed governments. Some accused persons have languished in Jamaican prisons for decades only to be released short of the grave with nominal payments.
There are new things available to the forward thinking.
Law abiding people are generally unconcerned about crime, police, courts or prison as they go about their daily business in the supermarket, banks and sidewalks, often surrounded by suspicious persons on police bail, accused persons before the courts as well as repeat offenders released from prison. If this situation came to mind, people would be afraid to venture into the streets.
Governments are renowned for kicking the failed systems of crime prevention and the administration of justice down the road. At one time in the Cayman Islands, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, now judge, sought to put forward the ridiculous assertion that criticism of the administration of justice system would bring it into disrepute. It is that kind of thinking which has kept that failed system in park.
There is no new thinking and even less resources for giant court lists and overcrowded police cells and prisons.
A simple correction that would start to help things along is the change of court or police dates by administrative acts, often time used in some lower courts. People need not attend court unless there is a trial, or the police, for charge or release. The repeated and voluminous bail documents only adds to the bureaucratic nightmare. The Jamaican justice minister has sought to address this problem using a solution from Rwanda. It is a step but not a stride in the right direction given the long time history of government has been in power. Other should follow and supersede that baby tippy toe.
Another helpful strategy would be for the man in the street to understand there is no correlation between increased crime penalties and decreased or eradicated crimes. It does not work, just like decreased murders often leave equally serious crimes like rape, assault or house invasions, high or on the increase. Big announcements about larger penalties for crimes is an old, musty chestnut used by politicians, in cahoots with their legal advisors, foisted on an unsuspecting public to give the impression something is being done. Nothing is being done and a blind man could tell you that crime must be attacked before it starts.
More changes are available but they cannot come from inside the belly of the beast.
The answer is not importing more steel for more security grills. The answer has to come from viable, modern proposals by new political thought, not the old, entrenched status quo promising not to run again next election.
The time is now and the diaspora should not support a Potemkin or fake administration with failed anti crime strategies. There are many, young politicians with modern ideas, not from the realm of nepotism, that need to be given a chance to save the Caribbean. We can only help ourselves.
Round and round the merry-go- round.
Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer in the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88.
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