A Portrait of Crime in the Caribbean: Realities and Challenges

• Author: Ramesh Deosaran
• Pages: 104-128

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Caribbean Security in the Age of Terror

A Portrait of

Crime in the Caribbean:

Realities and Challenges

Ramesh Deosaran

Introduction

The first part of this chapter provides a very brief overview of the political

status of the relevant Caribbean states and the institutions dealing with crime

and justice. It will then examine some very dramatic crime events that helped

to expose the weaknesses in the region’s crime-fighting institutions, and which

also stimulated the region’s keenness for security. It will examine some trends

from official police records and discuss the implications. Finally, it will provide

a brief discussion on the way forward in forging better public safety and

security.

CARICOM States: Political Status

Geographically, the Caribbean region is usually viewed as that part of

the world which is located in the Caribbean Sea, bound by the United States

in the north, Central America in the west, South America in the south and the

Atlantic Ocean in the east. In terms of political, legal and judicial systems,

however, there is a significant diversity among these 21 island-states. For

example, there is Puerto Rico, a dependency-state of the United States, and

the United States Virgin Islands. Then there are the very small island-states

of the British Virgin Islands and Bermuda. Haiti is French-speaking while

the Dominican Republic has a mix of Spanish and French languages.

Added to this Caribbean diversity is the fact that three of the states which

are now included in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), largely a trading

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A Portrait of Crime in the Caribbean

bloc, are lodged in different parts of the American mainland. Belize is in

Central America, and Guyana and Suriname are at the north of South

America. Guyana is a former British colony; Suriname a former Dutch colony.

As further examples, Cuba has been largely Spanish-driven in both language

and institutions, and have had for over 40 years a one-party state. Then

there is French-speaking Martinique and Guadeloupe as parts of those islands

in the Caribbean Sea. This cultural and institutional diversity was largely

formed by the adventurism and colonial policies of European powers, mainly

the British, French and Spanish, between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The majority of Caribbean states, however, now politically independent

and English-speaking, have had a history of British colonialism, of African

slave labour and, in the case of Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago,

particularly, a history of both slave and East Indian indentured labour. This

chapter focuses mainly on 12 member states of CARICOM: Jamaica, St Kitts

and Nevis, Bahamas, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St Lucia, St

Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago and

Guyana. These nations have inherited their political, legal and judicial systems

from the British and, unlike Suriname, Martinique or Haiti, they now possess

institutions that largely reflect British antecedents, with legal and judicial

systems generally derived from British common law. These former British

colonies, from Jamaica in the north to Guyana in the south, form the bulk of

the Commonwealth Caribbean and CARICOM. Difficult as it is to gather

data across these 12 separate CARICOM countries, they will be the major

focus of this discussion on crime and punishment in the Caribbean.

Before we look at some crime trends and comparisons, it is useful to

make a few comments on the state of crime data and the responses to it

across these CARICOM countries. There is the culture of secrecy within

police organisations in the Caribbean, a feature that makes it difficult for

researchers to gain access to police data and other related crime data for

analysis. Unlike the release of the Uniform Crime Reports in the USA, or

crime data by the British Home Office, there is no tradition in the Caribbean

of having the crime figures published regularly. In fact, the figures are

normally released when they suit the political directorate to do so: or when

some kind of public pressure is brought to bear upon the police to do so. And

even when released, there is some attempt to present the figures in ways that

help to put the police in the best possible light. The resistance to open up the

crime report database has been quite obvious over the years. In fact, a 2001

proposal by a consultant to provide transparency and improve the methods

of both collecting and reporting crime data remains securely shelved by the

police and the Ministry of National Security in Trinidad and Tobago.1