A Longitudinal Study of Serious Crime in the Caribbean

• Author: Klaus de Albuquerque and Jerome McElroy
• Pages: 441-472

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A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF SERIOUS CRIME IN THE CARIBBEAN

A Longitudinal

Study of

Serious Crime

in the

Caribbean1

Klaus de Albuquerque and

Jerome L. McElroy

Twenty

INTRODUCTION

The popular tourist myth of the Caribbean

as a string of island paradises is being

undermined by the realities of crime. Even

some of the smaller and more remote

communities in the region have experienced

some spill-over effects of escalating crime

rates. Much of this escalation has occurred

since the late 1980s and is a direct result of

the large volume of drugs transiting the

region and the increasing number of guns

finding their way into most states (de

Albuquerque 1995, de Albuquerque 1996a).

But there are other contributing factors.

With relatively high rates of unemployment

and underemployment, increasing income

inequality, and the progressive marginalisation

of males who fail to meet proscribed

standards of education, it is small wonder

that a predatory class of young men has

emerged. It is this group that is

disproportionately responsible for the

increases in violent and property-related

offences and that has driven fear into the

hearts of the citizenry.

The extent of this fear is attested to,

particularly in urban areas in the region, by

the popularity of burglar bars (grill work),

high walls and fences, guard dogs, and

security guard services. In the Kingston

metropolitan area, this fear has reached such

hysterical proportions that the middle class

and the rich go as far as to grill in their

bedrooms and lock their guard dogs in with

them at night. Ordinary Jamaicans are

rushing to arm themselves. In 1997, more

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CRIME, DELINQUENCY AND JUSTICE

than 10,000 applications for gun licenses were made but only 1,096 licenses were

issued (Virtue 1998). Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, speaking at his Party’s National

Executive Committee meeting in January 1998, intoned, ‘We cannot continue

like this. We must save Jamaica from lawlessness’ (The Gleaner Online 1998a). The

recent wave of middleclass emigration (MBAs, accountants, engineers) in late

1999 suggests the situation is deteriorating (Rosenberg 1999).

Even formerly tranquil St. Kitts has been rocked by lawlessness over the past

four years beginning with a series of drug-related murders (de Albuquerque 1996a).

As of this writing, American students at an offshore Veterinary School in St. Kitts

were leaving the island after ‘purportedly’ being threatened by drug lord Charles

‘Little Nut’ Miller. Miller is fighting extradition to the United States (US) (he is

also wanted in Canada) and is afraid of being kidnapped Noreiga-style by US

agents and whisked out of the country (Larmer 1998).

Does the level of crime in the Caribbean really warrant the kind of fortress

mentality that has emerged among the more privileged classes in Kingston, Port-

of-Spain and Georgetown? Is violent crime so endemic in some areas that it is

creating a new kind of Caribbean emigrant? Is the current lawlessness in Jamaica

a harbinger of things to come elsewhere in the region as drugs and indiscipline

tear away at the social fabric?

SCOPE

This expansion of an earlier study (de Albuquerque 1984) attempts a long-

period examination of serious crime in the region. It contains three main sections.

The first reviews the general and specific (Caribbean) literature linking crime and

development with some special emphasis on Jamaica. The second tracks violent

and property crime rates for nine selected islands and offers plausible explanations

for the escalation of crime and for inter-island differences. The third provides a

preliminary case study of the determinants of crime in Barbados.

CRIME AND DEVELOPMENT

The literature on crime and development is extensive, disparate in approach,

and difficult to easily classify and compare. Despite the caution this diversity

suggests, two general findings seem warranted: development is positively related

to crime, specifically property crime, and negatively related to violent crime

(Bennett 1991). Of the two dominant explanatory frameworks, the Durkheimian

or modernisation perspective has been the most enduring. It links rising crime

(both violent and property) to the break-up of traditional normative social controls

(extended family, community ties, religious beliefs, ascribed status relations) during

the process of urbanisation-industrialisation (Neuman and Berger 1988).

Different authors emphasise different dimensions of the disequilibrium: the

anonymity, youth displacement and social disorganisation associated with rapid

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A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF SERIOUS CRIME IN THE CARIBBEAN

rural-urban migration (Archer and Gartner 1984, Shelly 1981) the disjunction

between modern and traditional values (Clinard and Abbott 1973, Messner 1982,

1988, Stack 1984); cultural heterogeneity and conflict (Hansmann and Quigley

1982, Quinney 1970) and the systemic frustration generated by absolute and/or

relative inequality during urban industrial growth (Krahn and others 1986, Krohn

1976, 1978, Wellford 1974, Wolf 1971). A related deprivation variant emphasises

blocked opportunity among marginalised out-groups, the so-called subculture or

culture of violence thesis (Gartner 1990, Wolfgang and Ferracuti 1967). This is

somewhat analogous to Marxian theories based on class conflict and uneven and

contradictory capitalist development (Neuman and Berger 1988, Shelly 1981).

The Durkheimian formulation, however, has been plagued by two problems:

weak and inconsistent empirical support, and a failure to differentiate the

determinants of violent versus property crime. Alternatively, the ecological or

opportunity or routine activities perspective has been developed from the cost/

benefit calculus characteristic of the Chicago school (Neuman and Berger 1988).

This theory emphasises economic and demographic changes over cultural and

normative patterns, and tends to predict increases in property-related crime only.

The forces of industrialisation and urbanisation increase the availability of material

goods and the pool of young potential offenders, and simultaneously reduce

kinship contact (potential violence) and the possibility of detection (through

anonymity, increased mobility, etc.) (Kick and LaFree 1985). Industrialisation

creates more ‘suitable [crime] targets’ and fewer and fewer ‘capable guardians’

(Cohen and Felson 1979, Maxfield 1987). This approach appears more consistent

with recent empirical work (Avison and Loring 1986, Bennett 1991, LaFree and

Kick 1986).

THE CARIBBEAN

Historically, the Caribbean has had fairly high violent crime rates coupled

with very low property crime rates when compared to most developing regions

in the world (United Nations 1977). With the growth of urban areas in the late

nineteenth and early part of this century, property crime rates increased (Trotman

1986). These rates mushroomed with the post-1960 restructuring of many

Caribbean economies away from plantation monocrops toward tourism, related

construction, and light manufacturing (McElroy and de Albuquerque 1983). In

the 1970s, violent crime rates began to increase and in Jamaica and the US Virgin

Islands (USVI) they were comparable to, or exceeded, those of the US (de

Albuquerque 1984). In fact, the pattern of violent crime (heavily gang, drug, and

gun-related) in these two territories parallels that of the US. These two states now

have the dubious distinction of having some of the highest homicide rates and

overall violent crime rates in the Americas (de Albuquerque 1996a, de Albuquerque

and McElroy 1999).

Most of the earlier explanations of crime in the Caribbean fit loosely under