Peter D. Phillips ‘We have had success in cracking down on crime’

Q: The Ministry of National Security plays a crucial in the social and economic development of the island. What would you say are your main priorities for this year?
A: We have to recognize that we in Jamaica, in hemispheric regional terms, are in a dangerous neighbourhood of sorts. We know of the problems on the Northern Coast of South America, the main cocaine producing regions of the world are not far from our doorsteps, a night's sail away by go-fast boats and by the same token if we look at the Atlantic Coast or the Caribbean Coast of Central America, and some of the adjoining island states, as well as some of those regions of South America that I mentioned earlier. You are in a situation where you are facing weak states or where there is almost non-existent state authority and by virtue of that there is a lot of illicit contraband moving through the Caribbean.

By virtue of our geographic proximity to South America and the cocaine producing regions there, the fact that we have an extended coastline, and we have very good transportation linkages with North America makes us an interesting location for illicit contraband. By virtue of the fact that South America is a night's sail away from South to North, heading North out Jamaica you can get into the Bahamans and Florida, in another night's sail. So we face a problem as the demand in North America and Europe for cocaine has grown, there are people who have tried to exploit Jamaica's geographic location for the transhipment of cocaine. That in turn has spawned a lot of criminal enterprises that have the potential of stimulating a lot of violence in the inner city areas.

As a country, we are not a major consumer of cocaine, neither are we a producer but simply be virtue of the geographic location the trade has grown. It is a cause of great concern for us in Jamaica and we are working with our international partners, the United States, UK, Canada, other Europeans and Columbia to try and staunch this trade. So that is a major concern and the gun violence which comes in its train is a cause of major concern for us. One way of looking at this is to see that globalization has not only meant the globalization of legitimate enterprise but it has also meant the globalization of criminal enterprise and an intensification of market transactions. So that we see criminal enterprises operating through Jamaica with links in the UK, the US and elsewhere, so they have become equally globalized and we have to tackle it as a global problem and I must say we are working well with our partners.

The other element of our effort is to revise the tide of violent crime that affects some sections of the island. Most of this is really in just two police divisions, in the lower part of St. Andrew and St. Catherine in the Portmore area and by and large it is not a problem that affects the society generally but the rates even in these two areas is too great. We have had some success in reversing some of this tide thus far, but we have to build upon that.
That has involved just expanding the size of our security forces. There is an active recruitment drive. Modernizing the available technologies to the police force, legislative changes to facilitate investigative work on the part of the police, amendments to the finger print act, to bring our laws in line with the situation in the UK and elsewhere and to establish a sound platform of community policing by trying to enhance relationships between the police on one hand and the communities that they serve.

Since last December we have intensified our activities and it has had some success, major crimes are down by about 19% compared to last year. But this is an effort that has to be sustained. The need that confronts us now is the need to modernize the infrastructure of law enforcement. It is a costly venture; it is manpower intensive and as I say it is bolstered by the fact that there is this growing network not only in the Caribbean, but everywhere. We see Turkish gangs in the UK, there is a network of gangs in the Caribbean routed in Columbia, South America generally, heading up through Central America and the Caribbean, the United States, UK and elsewhere, so it is a sophisticated enterprise.

Q: You mentioned earlier that you have been successful in attracting collaboration from your foreign partners. In the US I know you are working closely with the American Chamber of Commerce, with the PERF initiative. With the UK you have the Memorandum of Understanding; I know some people have been involved in training of the police forces, Japan and Canada just a few examples. What role has the Ministry of National Security played in putting together this collaboration and how can you really ensure that the execution of these ideas will be as effective and efficient as possible?
A: First of all, we have been welcoming the possibilities of closer cooperation. We have signed and have facilitated the signature of a number of mutual legal assistance treaties which provide for the sharing of information, the extradition where it arises and joint prosecution, forfeiture of assets etc. arising from criminal enterprises. So the first point I would make is that our own stance is one that is supportive of international collaboration and activist in that we reach out to have these agreements.

Secondly, we have put on the table with some of our foreign partners and in fact have got on the way, joint operational efforts, that is to say in our respective countries and utilizing the available resources, we have committed ourselves to joint efforts in identifying and eliminating through prosecution, criminal enterprises which are trans national in scope. So to that extent, we are again facilitative of the operational joint collaboration and I emphasize operational. Thirdly, we are elaborating a policy that is aimed at modernizing the infrastructure of law enforcement. Identifying ways in which technology can act as an effective force multiplier so to speak, facilitating the expansion of the force and its institutional reorganization in all of these ways, legislative amendments and passage of new legislation.

We intend shortly to bring not only plea bargaining legislation, legislation amendment to the fingerprint act, a new port security act, a proceeds of crime legislation that will allow us to get and recover any illicit wealth that has resulted from criminal enterprises and to forfeit it. The Cabinet has just recently said that those resources that are forfeited must go into the law enforcement effort. So we hope to sustain this effort overtime and be able to reverse any kind of criminality. Events of recent times, September 11, while might seem remote to us has served as a reminder that you are living in a dangerous world over all and the tentacles of this kind of criminality have spread far and wide and the world community is going to be as strong as its weakest link.

Q: We have met with people from the Private Sector and they have been supportive of all the initiatives that have been taken by the Government and all the collaborations. The tourism sector is actually one sector that has been directly affected by the crime situation in Jamaica. How could the private sector get even more involved in working with the Government in crime prevention?
A: I will also make the point that our tourist communities are very safe in Jamaica by and large in terms of crimes involving tourists, we are on the lower end of the scale in the Caribbean. They are absolutely remote from anything that might be happening in some of our inner city areas. Like any other country there are communities that are more volatile than others.

The Private Sector Organization of Jamaica (PSOJ) has been very involved during the Presidency of the Honourable Oliver Clarke, in raising the level of consciousness about the nature of the threats, particularly the threat from illegal drug. In collaboration with us, they have sponsored a number of seminars across the country and in the Jamaican communities, in Canada, the United States, we intend to go to the UK sometime later this year, to make the various communities alive not only to what is happening here but what is happening there to build the awareness of things that are taking place and responses and ways in which the public can become involved.

There have been other initiatives that the Private Sector has been involved in, the Private Security Industry has again entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Constabulary Force for the sharing of information and operational collaboration where it can work out, that has been underway. The issue of support for the police, again the PSOJ has done a lot in sponsoring support weeks for the policing across the country. Other Private Sector groups have given a lot of support to the community initiatives being undertaken by the police in the inner city areas.

Recently, one company donated 10 Million dollars over three years for scholarships for people from these communities at risk, so there is a lot that has been done. We need to build on that platform and also build with the rest of the community, not just the Private Sector so that we give substance to their self-evident truth that unless there is full-fledged collaboration between the community and the security forces, then the possibilities of success will be tremendously limited.

Q: You mentioned that the community plays a huge role in the whole crime prevention issue and I know that one of the objectives of your ministry is to get the community involved and show their support to these issues. How would you rate the involvement of the community thus far, since you have been at the head of the ministry, in collaborating with the government and the police to combat crime?
A: It is improving. There has been a tremendous level of outreach, a growing awareness on the part of members of the security forces that we need to enlist the support of the community. One of the reasons why in the particular sections of inner city Kingston where the security forces have been active since last December, they have maintained a long term presence is precisely because we believe we have learned the lesson that you will never secure the collaboration of the populace if the police come and go and you only see them in their operational aspect in large numbers. It was important for us to establish relationships beyond the entry in force by the security forces. That has helped transform attitudes a lot, but much more needs to be done on that and ultimately, once we have reduced the levels of criminality, in some of these communities, it will provide the basis for a solid platform of community based policing, in all our stations and without these large scale interventions to consolidate itself.

Q: We have heard a lot about "Heal Jamaica" and this is an initiative involving The American Chamber of Commerce. Do you think that this initiative, which is actually unique in the world, will provide an example for many developing countries who are dealing with the same issues and integrating the communities and dealing with issues of crime?
A: It represents an important initiative for us, it is focused on a particular community at this point in time, the Grants Pen area and we are going to build on that experience and learn as much as we can. I think we have to recognise that every country is going to have to adapt to its own particular situation and also it is recognised everywhere that community policing is the ideal form of arrangement for the obvious reason that if the security forces are in a hostile relationship to the community as a whole, then instead of isolating the criminals, what you have done is actually isolating the security forces instead.

Q: Along the same lines as the community involvement, I know that one of the best ways to fight these problems is really by preventing them from the start. How has the Ministry been involved in crime prevention at the youth level, how involved do schools get?
A: We have implemented what we call a "Youth against Crime Initiative" and we have embraced the youth clubs, the schools and other organized centers of young people activity because the youths are the most at risks, both as victims and as perpetrators of crimes and we are going to continue that engagement and continue to refine the nature of the engagement to include mentoring programmes and the like in the schools. But with crime you face a serious chicken and egg situation. There is probably no greater antidote to rampant criminality than successful vibrant economic circumstances. It is in that regard that you face a real chicken and egg predicament because if there is no economic vibrancy you have the potential for crime increasing and criminal activity seeming attractive to young people.

By the same token, criminal activity drives away legitimate economic activity, so you get caught in a vicious cycle of deterioration once criminality takes route in any particular community. So we recognise that what you need to do is to muster the energies and sustain a reduction in the levels of criminality, which will then provide the basis for the economic revival in communities and that we also have to address as a government the need to focus our energies and coordinate our social interventions in various areas; to address the particular and unique needs of these inner city communities. With all the programmes that reach out to young people, they are important and we will sustain them, but nothing will deliver the kind of reward as much as providing more jobs and economic activity and legitimate income flowing into people's hands and pockets in these communities.

Q: What would you say is the main objective that you wish to achieve this year, 2003 as the Minister of National Security?
A: We want to sustain a steady reduction in the levels of crime and the commissioner has said that he is aiming at a 25% reduction. It is an ambitious target, it may or may not be achieved, we would love to exceed it, but we recognise that is an ambitious target. We would rather have an ambitious target set, rather than targets that are too modest and therefore do not secure the kind of intensity of activity and commitment which we are interested in. So our main target is to sustain the reduction and we want to make progress on elaborating the modernization of our security forces, introducing new technologies, upgrading the training skill, improving the welfare conditions and the moral of the force, assuring higher levels of integrity and generally accepted integrity in the performance of the forces.

Q: In regards to your own experience in the political world, we have been speaking to a lot of Jamaicans and they have spoken very highly of you. You are a man known for implementing and following through on all the projects, what you have done with the Ministry of Transportation and Works you have been highly credited for improving the road infrastructure. I understand you started off in academics and I would like to know how did you actually get involved in politics and how do you see the Ministry of National Security to be as part of this development at the time?
A: I grew up in a period of great ferment and it was natural for people in my generation to become involved in politics. I was in high school in the immediate Post Independence years and there was a very intense nationalist, patriotic ferment in the period and without seeming to detract from any particular profession. In those days the best and the brightest studied politics, sociology and history. Nowadays the best and the brightest study for MBA 's but it was that kind of period and so from high school right up my family and I have always seen social engagement as part of a natural obligation of citizenship.

Coming up through the seventies when I did my doctoral work in the US having completed my undergraduate and initial graduate work here at UWI, it seemed a natural thing to do. I came back in 1981 and while lecturing I was also involved in the party and its activities, That has been a continuous thing since high school and we happened to win the elections in 1989 and the rest is recorded history.

I have said publicly in Jamaica that this is not a job that I applied for; it is a particular difficult task, but having taken it on, there is probably no more urgent task now in Jamaica and to that extent it is worth giving it my best efforts. Because the very foundation of anything that we hope to become as a country, is going to depend on us having a stable and security social environment and we need to accomplish that even in the face of a growing kind of turbulence that exists in our neighbourhood. South America and the ferment which is going on in Columbia and Venezuela, people think of them as being far away but just look at a map and it is not all that far. Haiti is a couple hours away and in all of those places there is turbulence, then there is the whole coast of Central America, a lot of turbulence, a lot of arms left over from the Wars of the 80's in Nicaragua and else where. So that we have been successful in immunizing ourselves so to speak against those developments and we need to continue to do so.

Q: Are you working together with your closer neighbours here in the Caricom region?
A: We have good collaboration with Caricom and we work with them also. The Commissioner in fact this year is the President of the Association of Caribbean Police Commissioners. In the Caribbean there is a large expanse of sea which really belongs to no one but exists and can be used, so we work with our Caricom partners and we work more widely too, we have a Maritime Assistance with the United States which is going to be expanded to include other partners so we can be able to more effectively interdict drug movement and the like. We have had some success and intend to build on that.