A new minister of national security, new broadcast to the nation, new expectations, but the same old intractable crime problems. The national security ministry has been the burial ground for many a hopeful minister. Why would it be any different for Dwight Nelson?

Jamaica's crime problem has proven impervious to the threatened 'onslaught' of successive security ministers. And Dwight Nelson has taken over at a most inauspicious time: a time when resources are scarce and frustrations high. One thing we know: there is no need for the new minister to commission a new study. Crime has been the most-studied problem in Jamaica. I would suggest that he does not leave out of his required reading the 2009 GraceKennedy Foundation Lecture by the country's premier scholar on the issue, Professor Anthony Harriott.

Main security issues

In a lecture titled 'Controlling Violent Crime: Models and Policy Options', Harriott set out clearly and without obfuscation the country's main security issues and the main policy prescriptions on the table. He has tackled the issues with a keen sense of nuance, sophistication, balance and deep knowledge. Anthony Harriott is no ivory tower intellectual: his deep grass-roots grounding is evident in the published lecture, and those of us who know him from the 1970s know of his strong social activism and attachment to the working class. He admirably combines scholarship with praxis, and he has clearly been listening to the people. Nelson needs to listen to him.

Already Nelson's stated intention to go after the gangs and the organised crime network - a focus also of former National Security Minister Peter Phillips - finds support in Harriott's thesis that organised crime is Jamaica's greatest security challenge. And organised crime is facilitated and bolstered by garrison politics and the politics-gangs network. Politicians have been acknowledging this but doing very little about it. If the power of the dons is not broken and if gangs can still find safe havens in the garrisons, then we can forget the fight against crime.

"Organised crime groups are able to use their criminally acquired wealth to corrupt some of the key institutions of the country, including the police force, elements in the state bureaucracy and the political parties," said Professor Harriott in his highly engaging lecture. "The garrison communities and constituencies are the most toxic expressions of this nexus. They are safe havens for organised crime and safe seats for the political parties. Both sets of actors, therefore, have an interest in preserving the garrisons."

How free will people be?

The minister's decision to go into troubled communities is fine and good, but when some of these communities are tightly controlled by criminal dons and shottas, how free will the people be to speak their minds and to counsel the minister on what really needs to be done? The minister spoke in his broadcast on Sunday about these consultations providing him with "a unique opportunity for direct dialogue," to "listen to the views of the people" and "evaluate their recommendations". But those people know that they have to go back home and so they can't speak outside of what the criminal dictators will allow them to say.

We talk about democracy, but in many of our inner-city communities citizens are not free to speak their minds. In many of our communities the people have to choose life over free speech. That's the cruel choice they have. Until we find effective ways of crushing the garrisons, we will not only not solve crime we will not be a truly liberal democracy.

Tolerant of criminality

But the problem of crime is not just a problem of politics and politicians. Because of what the late Professor Carl Stone called "the dominance of money", we have large numbers of people who are tolerant of certain criminal activities as long as 'money is running'.

The Jamaica National Victimisation Survey (2006) found that 43 per cent of those respondents who live in communities with area dons claimed they had done "positive things" for the communities. So often we see on television people blocking roads and creating mayhem because some notorious criminals are shot or arrested. While some are forced to act outraged, others genuinely appreciate the blood money. Now you say if politicians were providing enough opportunities people would not have to turn to the dons. And that leads us to another deeply troubling issue which Harriott dealt with - the fact that any success in destabilising criminal gangs will have an negative economic costs.

The underground economy contributes to our gross domestic product. If we hit the drug trade, especially in these tough times, our economy will also take a hit and we will risk more robberies and property crimes. Reduced funds from the drug trade could affect our exchange rate. When drug money stops flowing in inner-city communities, there is likely to be more intra- and inter-community violence, more theft and increased antisocial behaviour (more sexually transmitted diseases, as more young girls and women trade sex).

Issue of values

This is why I have maintained that the issue of values is the most significant one which we face in tackling crime and other social challenges in Jamaica. Hard-nosed, 'pragmatic' and 'sophisticated' thinkers and analysts tend to dismiss those issues as soft, even Pollyannaish, but they don't think deeply enough. If the people in the garrisons and other poor communities come to value peace, harmony and love above money, then when the blood money is cut off they would pay the price. If we had a culture in which people would literally die for principles - death before dishonour to their values - then the power of the dons and the politicians would not be as strong.

Repeatedly, Harriott bemoaned the tolerance for certain types of behaviour but did not go as far as in making the social-capital-deficit argument that Don Robotham and I would. Harriott implicitly recognised the centrality of values by saying "the violence problem can no longer be explained only in terms of lack," and that "the explanation must include the presence of alternative socialisation, alternative validation of behaviour".

Success in disrupting the gangs - a major plank in Minister Nelson's anti-crime strategy - will have a serious political cost that he must contemplate. Said Harriott in his GraceKennedy Foundation Lecture (which the company has done poorly in publicising - oh for the days of Corina Meeks!): "Any administration that successfully weakens and controls organised crime and as a consequence weakens its links with gunmen who are still able to retain their power and influence in the communities, must also consider its impact on their electoral prospects.

"They would no longer have the services of the gunmen and could not rely on the police for reliable protection against gunmen in service of their opponents. The successful administration would thus be exposed and vulnerable to these developments, unless both sides agree not to exploit whatever political opportunities and advantages might be created." The parties have always claimed agreement on this, and have put it on paper, but on the ground it's a different story.

Add pressure

This is where civil society has to add the pressure on the politicians. They will only change when sufficient pressure is brought to bear on them and when it becomes too costly for them to continue the garrison politics and the politics-criminality link.

One of the most useful and engaging part of the 2009 GraceKennedy Foundation Lecture was the comparison between the two dominant models of crime control: The crime fighting, 'tough policing' approach and the human rights, social justice (social interventionist) approach. In the lecture, Harriott made a strong critique of the crime-fighting strategy, the one I have favoured in the short term.

Harriott said bluntly, "There is an undemocratic impulse in crime fighting." What I found laudable about Anthony Harriott, my being an ardent advocate of the crime-fighting strategy which he knocked, was that he did so with a keen understanding of my perspective (without the usual misrepresentations) combined with a rationally plausible critique. It is not a skill many of our Jamaican debaters have.

Harriott admitted that "increased arrests, increased incarceration all tend to have short-term deterrent effects". But that is precisely what is needed in a context of galloping crime, Anthony. You want some breathing space. That is why the crime bills which the Government has proposed should be passed without delay. We are in a security crisis. Does the Opposition disagree? We understand the problem of trust and how that makes it difficult to support any bill which gives increased powers to the police. But until we disband the police force, they are what we have to work with.

"The crime-fighting model has been a general failure," Harriott said. Yes. But is the social justice model any better for our circumstances in the short term?

Key admission

Harriott made a key admission which all the human rights advocates have always missed. Confessed Harriott: "The big challenge for this (social justice) model in the present context would be to demonstrate its relevance and power in dealing with the contemporary challenges of organised crime and the subculture of violence."

Excellent point - if the human rights advocates would only address it. Harriott pointed out that the roots of our crime problem are not just in social marginalisation and lack of legitimate opportunities. (I hope Wilmot Perkins is listening), "but the existence of an elaborate illegitimate opportunity structure and the emergence of a subculture of violence. The latter means that even if the socio-economic problems are addressed, high rates of violence are likely to continue for some time. Attending to root socio-economic causes is unlikely to yield much short-to-medium-term effects on the homicide rates."

For years I have been trying to get the social justice model advocates to understand that one simple point as they talk incessantly about 'social intervention', tackling poverty, etc.

The model ignores our context and is bankrupt in terms of short-term strategies. In light of the global economic crisis, the social justice model is even more severely limited and irrelevant.

For us to have a serious discourse on crime, we have to read Anthony Harriott.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.cm or columns@gleanerjm.com.