Community Based Policing Assessment Report - April 9 2008.pdf

JAMAICA – COMMUNITY-BASED

POLICING ASSESSMENT

MARCH 2008

This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. It was prepared by ACP John Mclean of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, Professor Anthony Harriott and Dr. Elizabeth Ward of the University of the West Indies, and John Buchanan and Roopa Karia of USAID.

CONTENTS

Acronyms....................................................................................................................................................... i I. Introduction and Historic Background

Assessment Objectives Community-Based Policing Historic Background

II. Executive Summary III. Analysis of CBP: Community Relations & Lessons Learned in Grants Pen

The Successes and Failures of CBP in Grants Pen Sustainability and Replication of The Grants Pen CBP Model

IV. Jamaica Constabulary Force Analysis Lessons Learned Recommendations Jamaican Experience with CBP The JCF and Community Policing Programmes Complementary to Community Policing Recommendations: Opportunities for the COMET Project to support the JCF

V. Monitoring and Evaluation of CBP Lessons Learned Recommendations Measuring CBP Progress and Success

ANNEXES

Annex I: Coordination with Donors and the Private Sector Annex II: Individuals and Organizations Consulted Annex III: Literature Review Annex IV: Community Based Policing Baseline Assessment Annex V: CBP Lessons Learned Matrix Annex VI: Recommendations Matrix Annex VII: CBP Assessment Terms of Reference

- i - i

ACRONYMS

ACP Assistant Commissioner of Police (JCF)

AMCHAM American Chamber of Commerce

CBO Community-Based Organization

CBP Community-Based Policing*

CP Community Policing*

CPI Community Policing Initiative (pilot CBP project implemented by PERF)

CSP Community Security Plan

DFID Department for International Development (UK)

EU European Union

GIS Geographic Information Systems

GoJ Government of Jamaica

IDB Inter-American Development Bank

JASPEV Jamaica Social Policy Evaluation

JCF Jamaica Constabulary Force

KRC Kingston Restoration Company

MSI Management Systems International

NGO Non-Governmental Organization

PERF Police Executive Research Forum

PMI Peace Management Initiative

POC Police Oversight Committee

PPP Peace and Prosperity Project (implemented by KRC)

SDC Social Development Commission

USAID United States Agency for International Development

* Please note these terms are used interchangeably throughout the report.

I. INTRODUCTION AND HISTORIC BACKGROUND

Assessment Objectives

Following on from a USAID Jamaica workshop in December 2007 it was agreed to carry out a review and assessment of community based policing (CBP) in Jamaica. This was undertaken by a five-person team, experienced in the area, which carried out a literature review and conducted field work over a two-week period in January/February 2008.

The purpose of the assessment was to determine next steps for mainstreaming the Grants Pen CBP experience and identify the technical assistance needs of the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF) roll out of CBP in Jamaica.

The assessment articulates the key lessons that can be drawn from the Grants Pen experience to benefit future CBP implementation in Jamaica and indicates how best to scale-up and mainstream the community policing activities in Grants Pen.

The assessment defines USAID’s role in supporting these efforts, primarily through the existing USAID Community Empowerment and Transformation Project (COMET). The recommendations of this assessment take into account the resources available to USAID/Jamaica as well as political will and support for CBP.

Community-Based Policing

Throughout this assessment, the terms community-based policing and community policing are used interchangeably.

For USAID, community-based policing is an approach to policing based on the concept that crime can be most effectively addressed through partnership between the police and the community they serve. When put into practice, this approach to policing is generally characterized by consultation by the police with communities, adaptation of police policies and strategies to meet the requirements of specific communities, mobilization of the public to work with police to prevent crime, and adoption of a mutual problem-solving methodology as the fundamental strategy of policing.

The JCF similarly defines CBP as a philosophy and an organizational strategy based on the premise that the citizens of a country deserve an input in the police process, in exchange for their participation and support.

- 2 - 2

Historic Background

Within the JCF, a move towards community-based policing has been espoused policy for over 10 years. This is documented most recently in the JCF’s 2005 - 2008 Strategic Plan. The JCF has supported CBP in communities in the past, for example, the Gold Street CBP experiment in 1996.

USAID has supported the development of community policing for the past five years, particularly in Grants Pen, and has examined how to replicate aspects of community policing in other areas. More recently, this has changed to a strategic approach to supporting the JCF in developing community policing across Jamaica, rather than in a few pilot sites.

Relevant USAID Programmes Since 2000, USAID has supported activities in inner-city communities in Kingston, activities that were complemented by other USAID-supported civil society strengthening and court improvement programmes.

The USAID Peace and Prosperity Project (PPP) worked to increase employment and entrepreneurship and improve conflict resolution in the Kingston communities of Grants Pen and Standpipe. The programme was implemented by the Kingston Restoration Company (KRC) from 2002 to 2004, with a number of Jamaican organizations as subcontractors.

To improve community safety in Grants Pen, USAID signed a cooperative agreement with the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) from October 2002 to September 2005. The Community Policing Initiative (CPI) supported JCF efforts to implement community policing in Grants Pen. A study of violent crime and murder reduction in Kingston, commissioned by the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) in Jamaica and written by PERF, helped guide the design of the activity in Grants Pen.

PERF provided training to police and citizens, community outreach, and public education. In addition, the Jamaican private sector, led by AMCHAM, built a model police station in Grants Pen. The Grants Pen station houses several private businesses, including an Internet café and a Paymaster outlet, and a community health center is adjacent to the station. Further information on this project is detailed in Section III.

While the CPI pilot was being implemented, USAID was simultaneously supporting a complementary civil society strengthening programme, CIV JAM, to help national-level NGOs in Jamaica become more active participants in national governance and more effective public advocates. In addition, to improve the ability of courts to resolve cases in a timely fashion USAID supported an effort to automate and expedite court proceedings in the Resident Magistrate Courts.

- 3 - 3

In Grants Pen, this activity was followed by the USAID Community Empowerment and Transformation Project (COMET). COMET builds on the PPP, implemented by KRC, and the Community Policing Initiative, implemented by PERF. COMET is working with residents, the GoJ, the JCF, church groups, CBOs, and other organizations to come up with solutions to crime and violence in Grants Pen and two other communities. COMET is engaged in five main activities:

• Assistance to the Jamaica Constabulary Force and residents to implement effective community policing programmes;

• Encouraging community groups to partner with the police and other organizations;

• Increasing citizen participation in the community transformation process;

• Assisting key community groups to become financially self-reliant and more effective; ,

• Ensuring “ownership” of community activities by residents and local groups.

- 4 - 4

II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This assessment follows on from a stakeholders’ workshop convened by USAID and held on December 11 2007. This workshop was significant in making efforts to deal with the differences of opinion about Grants Pen in a way that was constructive, action-orientated and forward looking. This report seeks to continue to move this process forward by identifying lessons learned and making recommendations for progressing CBP in Grants Pen and throughout Jamaica..

Personal safety is a primary concern for many Jamaicans and reducing the country’s high rates of violent crime has been and continues to be a challenge for the Government of Jamaica and the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). For the past ten years, community-based policing (CBP) has been an espoused policy of the JCF with several past attempts at implementation. Lessons from these previous programmes have been included in this assessment. While past CBP reforms have typically not been sustained, they do provide a platform for the country-wide CBP expansion that is now a major priority for the new JCF Commissioner of Police. Currently, the JCF is working to roll out CBP more widely throughout the country.

USAID has supported community policing in Kingston, and specifically in Grants Pen, for the past five years: through the 2002-05 CBP pilot activity, the Community Policing Initiative (CPI), implemented by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), and through the current Community Empowerment and Transformation Project (COMET), implemented by Management Systems International (MSI).

The CBP model piloted in Grants Pen under the CPI was part of a larger strategy by USAID and its partners. The intent was to apply the lessons learned and best practices from the Grants Pen pilot to assist in the JCF’s roll out of community policing island-wide. Some basic elements of CBP were introduced in Grants Pen and the pilot succeeded in having an impact, albeit temporary, on the community-police relationship.

The assessment team found that Grants Pen is not a “model” either in terms of success or replicability but that there are valuable lessons to be learned which can assist with the ongoing development of CBP throughout Jamaica. The invaluable work of the private sector in supporting CBP in Grants Pen is particularly note worthy although there are lessons to be learned regarding roles and responsibilities.

While CBP has been attempted in various forms and at various times in the history of Jamaican policing there has never been a significant, sustained implementation programme. A number of factors have been identified to be addressed to make such an implementation of CBP more effective. These include leadership and accountability within the JCF; effective partnership working; clear policy support direction; enhanced corporate communications and increased organizational capacity. Nonetheless, while there are inhibitors to change various circumstances

- 5 - 5 referenced in the report suggest that the time is opportune to progress the implementation of CBP in Jamaica. In this respect, the roles of the international donor community and the private sector are significant.

This assessment recommends that USAID expands its work on community policing and supports the implementation of CBP within the JCF in several ways, including developing its organizational capacity..

A consistent theme recognized by the team during field work was a shortage of resources that constrains the JCF in the most fundamental ways. We recognize that good policing can be expensive. However, good policing is essential to improving the livelihoods of all citizens. As a result, we wish to stress the need for consistently greater resource allocation and accountability on the part of the Government of Jamaica for the JCF. Good intentions and plans are important;

resources are critical. The coordinated and focused support of the business community and international donor community in providing resources for the development of CBP has proved important in the past and will be even more so in the future.

Any further community policing efforts by USAID or the JCF must be accompanied by effective monitoring and evaluation (Section V and Annex IV and V), which will serve as the foundation for increasing the effectiveness and the impact of any programme and by close coordination and collaboration, not only with donors but also the private sector, which has resources and skills to contribute to community policing, crime prevention, and community development.

The assessment team recognizes the difficulty associated with measuring many of the aspects of programme performance in the police environment. However, if initial monitoring and evaluation is designed with focus and simplicity, the utility of the initial results will encourage follow up and further refinement.

From a more general perspective, the assessment team believes that while there are likely those in Jamaica who would not support improving police performance, there are a number of factors currently present that do support reform. The new JCF Commissioner has publicly made CBP a top priority. In general, the public supports improved policing, as does the private sector. DFID is conducting a complementary modernization project in both the Ministry of National Security and the JCF, which the USG should encourage to continue beyond its scheduled summer 2008 end date. EU budget support can be used by the GoJ to support the implementation of GoJ policies related to security (including community policing). Lastly, the current USAID COMET project provides a ready mechanism for supporting reform in the JCF.

The team agrees that the goals of reform are not in question. That the JCF knows the goals is also not in doubt. How change is to be implemented and accomplished is the primary obstacle.

The state of the JCF as an institution presents the most significant challenge. In theory, control of the operational philosophy rests with management. In practice, however, if supervision, process, structure, policy, implementation, accountability, leadership, and all the other components of an effective organization are inadequate, effective management of even routine

- 6 - 6 operations is a significant problem. These daily obstacles are even more daunting when sustained operational reform is the goal.

When functioning properly, the foundation of institutional management provides sufficient leverage for change to be accomplished. The JCF foundation is in serious need of rebuilding which can best be accomplished from the inside while taking advantage of support from the outside.

Part three of this report contains an analysis of CBP particularly in relation to Grants Pen. Part four of the report examines, in particular, the experience the JCF has had with CBP and looks at current organizational impediments to change and makes proposals for overcoming these. Part five highlight the importance of monitoring and evaluation.

In addition, Annex I identifies the key roles for the international donor community and private sector in Jamaica; Annex II details the individuals and organizations consulted during the assessments and Annex III sets out the literature review. Annex IV and V are relevant to the monitoring and evaluation recommendations.

The assessment team found there is significant experience to draw on in progressing CBP in Jamaica. While there are many hurdles and barriers to be overcome a significant momentum has been gathered which, with the support of USAID and other partners, should overcome these.

For ease of reference, two matrices have been prepared which detail the lessons learned and the recommendations of the assessment team; these are attached as Annexes VI and VII.

- 7 - 7

III. ANALYSIS OF CBP: COMMUNITY RELATIONS

& LESSONS LEARNED IN GRANTS PEN

This section of the report examines the CPI pilot project in Grants Pen to understand what did and did not take place there in terms of CBP. It looks then to the application of lessons learned to Grants Pen and the wider development of CBP in Jamaica.

Lessons Learned:

1. Grants Pen is not a “model” in terms of success or replicability.

2. Grants Pen is a good example of private sector commitment to CBP.

3. Good preparatory work was done and some elements of CBP were attempted in Grants

Pen, however core values of service, participation and accountability were absent..

4. Grants Pen provides valuable information and lessons

5. Decentralization, normally a component of successful community policing efforts, was viewed by some at least as going too far in the Grants Pen experiment. Stakeholders influence over management decisions was seen as subverting the normal JCF channels.

6. The role of stakeholders in the JCF’s future community policing efforts must be clearly defined and new lines of authority only created with the JCF and in accordance with standard management practices.

7. Unless specialized, central police units are properly trained and supervised closely, their standard tactics will damage positive police-community relationships and alienate the community. Community policing style and tactics are not just for some officers.

The entire JCF must apply them. Specialized teams and task forces can implement community policing tactics also.

8. Trust- building is a difficult process that requires consistent effort on the part of the police to effectively manage the problem of corruption and to reliably protect citizens from criminal victimization. CBP projects should be accompanied by the development of dedicated channels by which the citizens in each community are able to help control corruption in the local police that serve them.

9. New personalities that bring a new policing style to a neighbourhood will have a window of trust building opportunity. The new style must persist for some time (three years is recommended) before old frames of reference are broken and a new model of police behaviour is created.

10. Some gains have been made in creating a new relationship between police and citizens.

In order to consolidate this progress, citizens must move from partnership into problem solving.

- 8 - 8

11. Peace-making in violent neighbourhoods is progress. However it does not remove or weaken criminal groups and, in some instances, may strengthen them. Peace- making can create operational space for social crime prevention but does not mean that neighbourhood crime has been successfully controlled.

12. From the perspective of policing, transformation should include the following at a minimum:

• Altering the structure of criminal offending in the community from a high violence pattern to a more “normal” pattern

• Ending the existence of political and gang-enforced borders within the Grants Pen communities

• Breaking or at least eroding the code of silence in the communities and normalizing the reporting of crimes to the police

• Ending citizen vigilantism and the informal systems that have been erected to deal with crime in the communities and which are managed by local gunmen

• Maintaining the above for at least a period of three years. An extended period of rupture is required for new patterns of behavior and thinking to emerge. The experience of past projects is that brief periods of change have occurred (at times for as much as two years), but thereafter the communities easily regress into the old patterns. Projects that are designed to rupture the existing patterns and to transform behavior have to be sustained for long enough periods before they may be scaled down without a return to the old ways. One cannot be exact about the minimum time that is required for transformation (in the limited ways that are described below), but experience suggests that if change can be maintained for at least three years, then perhaps new patterns are being formed which may now be sustained by lower levels of resource allocation and external support. The idea here is that given the nature of the crime problem, a brief period of crime reduction should not be taken as evidence of transformation and that project commitments should involve a minimum time commitment. This minimum is a matter of judgment and experimentation.

13. Care must be taken to ensure that a model is sustainable. Any model project should seek to adjust the requirements of the project to the larger realities. Innovative sustainable solutions must be the goal of any model project.

14. Distilling the experiences of Jamaica and other countries in the region is important to the successful roll out of CBP in Jamaica.

Recommendations:

1. CBP should be developed throughout Jamaica in an incremental way using innovation and creativity.

2. Manage expectations in Grants Pen by adjusting the requirements of the COMET project to the larger national realities (i.e., JCF management, resource constraints faced by the Jamaica state, etc.) and local capabilities in order to better ensure sustainability.

- 9 - 9

3. Continue to inform the communities of their role in the process and to include them in decision-making as appropriate for that role.

Where community leadership is weak, special efforts are needed to ensure the representation of the various demographic (age, gender, area) and political groups and interests. This begins with recognition of the representative leaders of the different community based organizations, but may not be limited to these. In this regards, the station commander is strongly urged to create and support a citizen's advisory board or group. This board or group should: Maintain relationships and build trust between the community and the police through a respectful and routine communication in a group setting to ensure that citizens and the community understand one another's expectations, limitations and roles while building partnerships to solve problems related to neighborhood order and safety. The Station Commander should not delegate this duty. (S)He should ensure that citizens of varied backgrounds and officers of all ranks attend and participate.

4. Develop training materials based on lessons learned and best practices in CBP and/or community involvement from the Jamaican experience (Gold Street, Flanker, Browns Town (Dunkirk), etc.) that can be used to mainstream CBP.

5. Accompany any further roll out of CBP with efforts to ensure that procedures or protocols governing the operation of specialized, central (i.e., non-Grants Pen) units in the communities are followed. These units must operate with the knowledge and consent of local commanders and an understanding of long term police-citizen relationship goals.

The Successes and Failures of CBP in Grants Pen

It is important to learn lessons from Grants Pen, both positive – things to be done elsewhere in developing CBP, and negative – things to be avoided in developing CBP in Jamaica. The December 11 2007 stakeholders’ workshop convened by USAID was a milestone in making efforts to deal with the differences of opinion about Grants Pen in a way that was constructive, action-orientated and forward thinking. The following analysis recognizes the many different view points held about Grants Pen which are difficult to reconcile.

Any assessment of the Grants Pen CPI pilot project that seeks to identify its successes and failures and to distil the lessons from this experience that might be applicable to similar projects in Jamaica ought to begin with an appreciation of the stated objectives of the project. This is a primary reference point for this assessment.

The three major strategic objectives of the project were described by PERF as follows:

• Moving the JCF in a positive direction toward a proactive, decentralized model of community policing;

• Reducing police fear of the community and community fear of the police; and,

- 10 - 10

• Engaging community stakeholders as a catalyst for change in community development and crime reduction.

According to PERF, “activities implemented in support of these strategic objectives were to fall into three broad categories: 1) Development of a model police station/community facility in Grants Pen; 2) Development of the community’s relationship with police; 3) Development of police capacity to implement community policing.”

The objectives of the pilot project, therefore, included the elaboration of a CBP model as a part of a larger strategy for the transformation of the JCF (by changing its style, organizational structure, relationship with the citizenry, and by developing its capacity to implement CBP Force-wide). A second and related aspect involved community transformation. This is stated above as “community development” via active participation of the various stakeholders.

Physical, social, and political transformation of the community is hinted at in the various reports and plans that were written by PERF. In these documents, the “Grants Pen model” appears to be viewed as part of a larger strategy for transforming the police and the communities. This vision (and plan) was bold and ambitious, but necessary, if sustained reduction in the rate of serious crimes were to be achieved in the Grants Pen community.

Grants Pen was promoted as an exercise in “model” building. This is the stated overarching goal. The CPI pilot project was expected to have a demonstrative effect on police reform and modernization and serve as a site of learning for the transfer of knowledge of a new approach to policing inner-city communities. It would exemplify new methods of work and new relationships with the community. Model, in this sense, entails a claim to success and portability or “replicability.”

The above goals are programmatic in nature. This is why sustainability and portability are such important tests of the worth of the pilot project. Project sustainability and integration with the general plans of the JCF were therefore critical to a later transition from being a project with a short, fixed life-span to a programme with indeterminate continuity.

The successes and failures are assessed with respect to the above goals of the project: the development of a “model” of CBP that is effective in urban high crime environments and which would positively influence the accumulation of support within the police and the society for change and a roll out of CBP; and the “transformation” of the community. The extent to which both objectives are achieved in sustainable and replicable ways is an important indicator of success or failure.

Development of the Model The Grants Pen experiment has produced a highly celebrated police station. The office environment of the police is exceptionally good and the facility is shared with other private and state provided services and, in a limited way, with the community. It is, on these criteria, a model police station. If, however, this model station was intended to symbolize and signify a new style of policing and greater police accountability to the community, then this was not achieved. A model station has been produced, but a working model of CBP was not achieved.

- 11 - 11

The centerpiece of the Grants Pen model was intended to be CBP. This style of policing is, according to Robert Trojanowicz and Bonnie Bucqueroux, “both a philosophy and organizational strategy that allows the police and community residents to work closely together in new ways to solve the problems of crime, fear of crime, physical and social disorder, and neighbourhood decay.” This represents a fundamental shift in ideas about policing as the end-state that is envisioned is not just low crime rates, but the transformation of communities. Of course, police cannot be responsible for transforming communities (many other actors, including the residents must contribute) but they can help create the conditions of neighbourhood safety that allow transformation to occur. CBP should therefore not be reduced to only the use of foot-patrols, more intensive, face-to-face, voluntary contact between police and citizens, and greater civility and mutual respect in the interaction during these encounters, although these are useful methods and outcomes. Its features include a shift from crime control to crime prevention and from case-solving to problem-solving. Problem-solving is based on partnerships with the communities that are served. These working partnerships help to develop mutual understanding and trust. Indeed, trust can help develop information that leads to both crime detection and prevention. They therefore help not just to make the people safe, but also make them feel safe, that is, reduce both crime and the fear of crime. Direct accountability of all the partners to the community is another cardinal feature of CBP. This accountability need not be anchored in legal authority, but should be properly structured and institutionalized. The core values of CBP therefore include service, participation, and accountability. In essence, it is a more democratically orientated style of policing.

The team found no evidence that the concept of CBP was ever fully developed and applied in Grants Pen. A senior police officer with command responsibilities for the area expressed this view in the following way: “I don’t believe that CBP was ever practiced in Grants Pen.” This concurs with the Assessment Team’s findings. However, considerable preparatory work was done and elements of CBP were attempted which may now provide valuable experiences and instruction to the JCF in any effort to roll out CBP nationally.

Traditional policing and what is correctly called “crime-fighting” is deeply entrenched in the JCF. There are constant pressures (internal and environmental) and incentives to revert to and retain this style of policing, which is seen as appropriate for high-violence environments, and for policing problematic sub-populations that need to be controlled. CBP is seen as incongruous with this environment and as a style that may even put the officer on the beat at risk. It is, however, seen as appropriate for low crime rural areas and suburban middle-class communities.

The significance of the Grants Pen experiment was therefore its attempt to confront these ideas and to show that CBP was applicable and could yield good results in high crime inner-city areas.

It was not the first attempt to do this in Jamaica. An earlier attempt to do a similar thing had been made by the JCF in 1995-1996 in Central Kingston, a much tougher community. This was done with some success, but was not sustained. The Grants Pen experiment sought to reaffirm this possibility, but did not draw on the lessons from the previous experience.

Assessment of CBP Elements Attempted As noted above, some of basic the elements of CBP were introduced in Grants Pen. These included decentralization as an organizational change within the JCF to support CBP; efforts to

- 12 - 12 improve police-citizen relations and citizen participation; problem-solving and crime prevention approaches; and community transformation.

Decentralization and Internal Organizational Change The development of a successful model of CBP requires that some internal policing conditions as well as community conditions be met. With respect to the internal policing conditions, this includes a structural arrangement that allows considerable scope for local decision-making.

Decentralization is an important component of CBP. The JCF is a national, highly centralized, organization that operates in a similarly centralized system of government. Put in historical context, decentralization represents a sharp break with the traditional ways of doing things in the JCF and requires a greater willingness to take responsibility and a high level of decision–making self-confidence at the local level. However, more recent conditions favour change as the JCF has already recognized the principle of divisional primacy, with the commanding officer of a division the key unit of command who can manage and drive change from the division level, including appropriately directing CBP activities.

According to some officers within the JCF, during the period of the CPI pilot project, Grants Pen had, in their opinion, gotten out of control. Stakeholders with financial power had improperly influenced policing matters to do with deployments, officer selection, and other operational decisions. In the process, the very principle of decentralization and divisional primacy was violated by these stakeholders going directly to the Commissioner and disregarding the authority of the divisional commander. The very principle on which CBP was to stand - divisional primacy - was subverted by the CPI pilot project itself. Use of these circuits of influence to get what some stakeholders wanted resulted in tensions with other community-based stakeholders and subverted the construction of sustainable structures and new norms of conduct that build trust. Situations such as these can create an atmosphere in which some may feel the need to reassert power in ways that obstruct positive change.

There is a lesson in this for the future roll out of CBP. It is not sufficient for stakeholders to be well-meaning, hard-working, and innovative; they must be educated about their role in the process and particularly in the development of new authoritative decentralized structures. As part of this work with stakeholders, the local Citizen Consultative Committees (including the Grants Pen Consultative Committee), which are made up of community and business leaders and other community residents, provide an important means to help the JCF link to the community to address community safety issues and improve communication and coordination.

The Community-Police Relationship There is another aspect to the problem of the internal organizational changes that are needed in order to make CBP a success. It is the relationship between the local policing authority and national or central units that occasionally stage operations in the communities with CBP projects.

There are concerns that the methods of these units tend to inflict considerable harm on local police-community relations and to undo the trust-building achievements of CBP. These problems are captured in the following anecdote. Recently a raid was conducted in the Grants Pen area by a unit from the Mobile Reserve. The purpose of the raid was to seize a number of illegal guns and to arrest the gunmen who owned them. No guns were found, but a number of

- 13 - 13 young men were arrested. After the raid, the local commander discovered that its purpose was to do what he had already done. The gun had already been ‘recovered” and the suspects were in jail at the time of the raid.

The upshot of this and similar incidents is that such police operations are seen by the people as harassment. They are actually the outcomes of structural (organizational) failure: the failure of over-centralization that does not encourage or mandate communication with the local commander.1 This is an old problem recognized during the Gold Street experiment in CBP in 1996. The lessons from that experience were clearly not used to inform the Grants Pen CPI pilot project. Any future roll out of CBP should be accompanied by efforts to ensure that existing and future JCF procedures and protocols governing the operations of central units in communities are followed. This is important if the efforts to develop good relations with the communities are to be free of unnecessary ruptures and reversals.

As noted above, an explicit goal of the CPI pilot project was “to reduce police fear of the community and community fear of the police.” The goal may be seen as a worthwhile end in itself, but is a condition of police-citizen partnerships and instrumental to the central goal of CBP, which is to reduce crime.

In order to succeed in a high violence environment, CBP must couple the crime prevention and control efforts of the police with the willingness of the citizens to achieve similar results. In the process, the police must resolve the difficult issues that trouble their relationships with the citizens in the communities of the urban poor. These issues include poor police service, disregard for citizen’s rights, disrespect and incivility, corruption, a mutual lack of trust, and an inability to protect those citizens who are willing to confront the crime problem. They thus include those conditions that are the outcomes of police fear of the communities (an abusive style of policing that disregards citizen rights) and which similarly induce fear of the police. The fears of both parties drive patterns of behaviour which in turn reinforces these fears.

The CBP experiment provided a stronger and permanent police presence in the community and therefore a greater capacity to protect the people. However, the deployment was disproportionate to Grants Pen’s size. For much of the pilot project period, there were approximately 70 police officers stationed in Grants Pen, a police to population ratio of 1:116.

The national ratio is 1:300. At the strength of 70, the Grants Pen station, which serves some 8126 persons (2006 estimate) or some 0.3% of the Jamaican population, accounted for approximately 0.9% of the entire JCF. Given the national strength of the JCF, this deployment was politically and administratively unsustainable and has since been reduced to approximately 35 or 1:233, equivalent to 0.43% of the JCF.

This dramatic change in police density in the Grants Pen communities, even without changes in the style of policing, would have been expected to have some impact on the crime rate.

Increased police strength along with positive changes in the nature of the relationship with the community may be expected to have an even greater impact. Citizens reported an initial improvement in the responsiveness of the police and greater civility and respect for them by the

1 The fear of corruption may also reinforce centralization.

- 14 - 14 foot-patrols and other units of police officers. This was a first step toward reducing fear of the police and building trust.

Trust and confidence in the police is built on changes in police behaviour. As the police become a part of the community, as it becomes a part of a network of institutions that provide services to the community, and as its officers become a part of the community leadership that is formed from patterns of face-to-face interactions, both police and citizen are better able to rationally evaluate each other and to develop mutual trust and confidence as partners in crime prevention and control.

The pilot project began with all of the problems described above. An attempt was made to establish baseline data on the attitudes of the residents of the community to the police. Focus groups were established for this purpose with the outcome that, while good qualitative data were generated that described the major concerns of the people and the root causes of the distrust and lack of confidence in the police, there was a general lack of rigor in establishing these baseline data. No measurements were taken.

A report on the focus group discussions indicated a very low level of trust and considerable fear of the police. Impressionistic evidence and reports by some respondents suggest that there was an initial reduction in fear and improvement in trust, but this has been reversed. The most recent available data on this issue was produced by the Social Development Commission (a state agency). Focus group methodology was also used for these assessments. The data that was generated from this assessment indicate that the level of trust is currently very low and that the pilot project did not make any lasting impact on this problem. For example, on a scale of one to ten, the mean rating given by some 300 citizens of their trust of the police in the division was 2.

There are more objective (behavioural) indicators of trust and confidence such as the level of reporting of crimes to the police, but there has not been any change in these patterns. This contrasts with the earlier CBP experiment in Central Kingston (Gold Street) in 1996 when there were positive changes in reporting patterns with respect to selected crimes such as rape. Distrust of the police is a deep problem that could not have been resolved during the short life of the Grants Pen pilot project, but one would reasonably have expected some positive change.

Citizens still report that they do not trust the police to act professionally on information that they may provide to them on criminals.

There are also related concerns regarding police reliability. Reliability is important to local partners who must take the risks that are involved in supporting and working with the police.

Responsiveness to their policing needs is regarded by them as an important indicator of police reliability and dependability. During this assessment, a number of respondents complained that police response to violence tends to be deliberately slow and that this unresponsiveness is rooted in negative attitudes towards them. They claim that the attitude of the police to the violent young men in the community is “let them kill each other.” Therefore, it is implied that the police tend to take action after a series of homicides have been committed rather than immediately after triggering events that are likely to be followed by a series of killings and/or attempted killings.

Greater anticipation and preventive action communicates a greater interest in the safety of the community and thus generates greater confidence in the police. The citizens do not believe that

- 15 - 15 the police have delivered on the promised “proactivity” that should have been a feature of the Grants Pen model.

Trust in institutions is a national problem. Trust-building at the local level, as an aspect of CBP, is therefore unlikely to yield quick and irreversible results. A survey that was conducted in 2006 by the Centre for Leadership and Governance at the Mona campus of the UWI found that Jamaicans do not trust their government and state institutions. Some 85% reported that they did not trust “people in government” and less than 8% had “a lot of confidence in the police.” Trust-building therefore has to be tackled at the national level – especially in the police. Negative attitudes and mentalities that obstruct the development of trust are distributed widely in the Force and the country. Communities should not be treated as closed systems. Moreover, these attitudes are never confronted openly. Training in CBP should not be viewed as simply the transfer of expertise; it should be designed to also explore these types of issues.

Consistent with the data on the distrust of national institutions that was reported above, distrust of the police is easily extended to other pilot project partners - if the experience with these partners is negative. Thus the model station is seen by important community actors as being linked to agendas of the more powerful partners and as a symbol of their relative powerlessness.

Some lessons may be drawn from the attempts to improve police-citizen relations as a working relationship for more effective crime control. It would seem that regardless of how problematic the relations between the police and citizens were/are, the citizens tend to display a willingness to support new attempts to change the state of this relationship. This has very little to do with a commitment to forgiveness as a moral value. This openness is made possible because the problems are usually personalized; new personalities are invariably given a chance to effect change.

The negative aspect of this “lesson” is that any new window of opportunity may be easily and quickly closed if the new personalities bring with them the old patterns of behaviour.

Interpretations of observable behaviour are framed by past experiences. The new must persist for some time before this frame is broken and negative conduct seen as unrepresentative of police behaviour and therefore of lesser consequence for police-citizen relations.

Behaviour patterns are more damaging when they are believed to be consistent with deeply held negative attitudes to the citizens that they ought to serve. An important lesson of the CBP experience is that if there are ingrained negative attitudes to the citizens, then their participation will not be valued, and their role in policing the community will be reduced to being the “eyes and ears” of the police, that is, the role of informants rather than problem-solvers and partners in community safety. The citizen-as-informant is the role assigned to them in traditional policing.

It is support for case-solving and contrasts sharply with the citizen-as-participant in problem-solving. Promoting a meaningful participatory role for the citizens requires a commitment to the core values of CBP. The organizational arrangements to facilitate citizen’s participation as partners have already been established. What is needed is their increased involvement in problem-solving.

Problem-Solving and Crime Prevention

- 16 - 16

The litmus test of the success of CBP is the extent and nature of its impact on the crime rates.

This is what distinguishes it from Community Relations. If there is little impact on the crime rates, then CBP will be seen as “social work,” as inappropriate for the high crime communities of Jamaica and a waste of police resources. The status of the community police officers within the police force and the degree of support for the concept therefore depends to a large measure on its crime control and prevention returns.

An objective of the CPI pilot project was to “engage stakeholders in crime prevention.” Where CBP is practiced, this may be done via problem-solving, and in Grants Pen, some attempt was actually made to do this. It was recognized that the main driver of the homicide problem in the communities of Grants Pen was gang violence. An attempt was made to approach this issue as a problem rather than as a set of violent incidents to be solved exclusively by traditional investigative work. Influential actors in the community including the churches and the police were able to broker a truce between the gangs. This truce lasted for over a year.

Truce-making is not exactly a policing response to criminal violence. It is at best a starting point for problem-solving, and may provide the conditions for tackling the social roots of the violence.

Peace permitted social interventions that brought resources into the community and provided opportunities for training and job creation. Some of these interventions met with mixed success.

The projects are of doubtful sustainability as the profits from them are consumed rather than invested in the growth of the micro-businesses. The crime prevention returns on them are therefore at best short-term. This is not a surprising outcome as this problem is not peculiar to Grants Pen. Current COMET project designers and managers should be able to address this problem.

The truce did not and could not weaken the power of the gangs. These groups were therefore able to negotiate the terms of the peace and to continue to manipulate violence to their advantage. For example, they are able to threaten the truce by “firing shots” and, by creating this threat, they are then able to demand money and “jobs.” Criminal methods are employed in negotiating peace. The killings have since resumed in Grants Pen as is evidenced by the dramatic increase in violent crimes in 2007.

Peace-making as a type of “problem-solving” was able to dramatically reduce the homicide and shooting rates in the communities as these crimes are mainly conflict crimes involving the gangs.

In this respect, Grants Pen is quite similar to other communities that experienced similar reductions in the rates of these types of crime during the same period and which did not have

CBP.

An important indicator of the state of the crime problem in the community (and the country) is the homicide rate. In 2006, after one year of CPI pilot project activity, the number of homicides that were committed in the project community declined from 15 incidents in 2005 (183 incidents per 100,000 citizens) to 3 incidents (37 per 100,000). Shootings similarly declined. Importantly, the number of homicides and shootings in Grants Pen as a proportion of all homicides and shootings in the larger St. Andrew North police division showed a significant decline during the CPI project period – from the previous low of 11% in 2004 to a new 10 year low of 5%. These

- 17 - 17 latter data suggest that there was a distinctively positive development in Grants Pen relative to the rest of the Division.

Other categories of violent crimes, such as rape and robbery, exhibited marked increases indicating that the community has not experienced a generalized decline in serious crimes.2 These are predatory crimes that would not have been affected by the truce. For example, while two years immediately prior to the beginning of the CPI pilot project in the community, the frequency of robberies ranged from 2 to 3 incidents, during the project (in 2006) this increased to 15 incidents.

There were also increases in the incidence of property crimes within the Grants Pen communities (see Table 1). Equally problematic for the communities is the incidence of property crimes that victimize the neighbouring communities of the middle strata, that is, the outwardly directed crimes. There are no available data on these crimes, but the perception of the respondents including one of the political representatives for the area is that this problem persists unabated with the consequence that the communities of Grants Pen are stigmatized as havens for criminals and middle class support for projects is therefore not as forthcoming as it may otherwise have been. According to one respondent, “the middle strata will give money in support of projects in Grants Pen, but are reluctant to give of their time and to be involved in projects that require their physical presence in the communities.”

As was the case in Grants…