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'Businesses share blame for crime'
Published: Friday | June 18, 2010 0 Comments and 0 Reactions Nadisha Hunter, Gleaner Writer
Business operators have come under fire for their financial ties to Jamaican crime cartels.
Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police Glenmore Hinds said businesses were partly to blame for the mushrooming of crime across the island, whether through funding schemes which had a veneer of legitimacy or the paying of extortionists.
"One of the things that has caused me tremendous grief is that I cannot understand how corporate Jamaica could be so complicit in financing criminality in this country," he said, while speaking at a Kiwanis Club of New Kingston meeting at the Hilton Kingston hotel Wednesday evening.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Alluding to an event staged annually by a gang and sponsored by a corporate entity,</span> he said business people should take responsibility for their actions, as funds they provided were often used by thugs as working capital.
"Some four years ago, I told corporate Jamaica that when they are approached for sponsorship by entities that they are not certain about, we will use the resources of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) and the Jamaica Constabulary Force to give them a fit and proper status (assessment of the entity), but none had taken up that offer," said Hinds, who is in charge of the constabulary's operations portfolio.
The acting deputy commissioner's comments come amid a massive manhunt for accused drug baron Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, who allegedly used state contracts and other business links to bolster a criminal network that extended beyond Jamaica's shores.
Dozens dead
The army swept into heavily barricaded Tivoli Gardens, Coke's command centre, on May 24 after militiamen coalesced inside the stronghold to challenge attempts to arrest the fugitive. Dozens of people died in clashes.
Hours before JDF soldiers were given the charge, violence rippled across sections of the Corporate Area, posing, in Hinds' opinion, an existential threat to the State.
"We came very close to losing Jamaica, because if this was allowed to continue, we are not too certain if another community would not have seen the example and decided that it is a good one to follow, and if we had eight such communities to deal with, our capacity would have been severely challenged," he added.
The operations chief also backed legislative reform which, he argued, was critical to neutralising gangs that were largely responsible for the 15,000-plus murders and more than 5,000 illegal firearms and 140,000 rounds of ammunition seized in the last decade.
"Anti-gang laws," Hinds said, "were crucial to winning the war against organised crime."
"Our legal regime was geared primarily to deal with individual crime in Jamaica. We have not adjusted the regime to deal with group crime," he told the Kiwanis audience.
"The legislation must take cognisance of the fact that persons operate in a group, and so if you are a group and a crime is committed by a member of the group, then you spread the pain across all the members of the group so that no one is left to carry out the bidding of the group," he added.
The police have said more than 200 gangs operate in Jamaica.
[email protected]
Published: Friday | June 18, 2010 0 Comments and 0 Reactions Nadisha Hunter, Gleaner Writer
Business operators have come under fire for their financial ties to Jamaican crime cartels.
Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police Glenmore Hinds said businesses were partly to blame for the mushrooming of crime across the island, whether through funding schemes which had a veneer of legitimacy or the paying of extortionists.
"One of the things that has caused me tremendous grief is that I cannot understand how corporate Jamaica could be so complicit in financing criminality in this country," he said, while speaking at a Kiwanis Club of New Kingston meeting at the Hilton Kingston hotel Wednesday evening.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Alluding to an event staged annually by a gang and sponsored by a corporate entity,</span> he said business people should take responsibility for their actions, as funds they provided were often used by thugs as working capital.
"Some four years ago, I told corporate Jamaica that when they are approached for sponsorship by entities that they are not certain about, we will use the resources of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) and the Jamaica Constabulary Force to give them a fit and proper status (assessment of the entity), but none had taken up that offer," said Hinds, who is in charge of the constabulary's operations portfolio.
The acting deputy commissioner's comments come amid a massive manhunt for accused drug baron Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, who allegedly used state contracts and other business links to bolster a criminal network that extended beyond Jamaica's shores.
Dozens dead
The army swept into heavily barricaded Tivoli Gardens, Coke's command centre, on May 24 after militiamen coalesced inside the stronghold to challenge attempts to arrest the fugitive. Dozens of people died in clashes.
Hours before JDF soldiers were given the charge, violence rippled across sections of the Corporate Area, posing, in Hinds' opinion, an existential threat to the State.
"We came very close to losing Jamaica, because if this was allowed to continue, we are not too certain if another community would not have seen the example and decided that it is a good one to follow, and if we had eight such communities to deal with, our capacity would have been severely challenged," he added.
The operations chief also backed legislative reform which, he argued, was critical to neutralising gangs that were largely responsible for the 15,000-plus murders and more than 5,000 illegal firearms and 140,000 rounds of ammunition seized in the last decade.
"Anti-gang laws," Hinds said, "were crucial to winning the war against organised crime."
"Our legal regime was geared primarily to deal with individual crime in Jamaica. We have not adjusted the regime to deal with group crime," he told the Kiwanis audience.
"The legislation must take cognisance of the fact that persons operate in a group, and so if you are a group and a crime is committed by a member of the group, then you spread the pain across all the members of the group so that no one is left to carry out the bidding of the group," he added.
The police have said more than 200 gangs operate in Jamaica.
[email protected]
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