Abre la puerta (5:4-5)

Chicago School sociologists Robert Park and Ernest Burgess developed the concentric zone theory which maintained that crime and disorder were not randomly distributed throughout a city but plagued areas known as zones in transition which were often located between the business district and suburbs (Hill and Paynich 2010). These zones in transition were characterised as socially disorganised, experiencing the highest levels of crime and

victimisation rates in the city (Brantingham and Brantingham 1981). They were also viewed as undesirable areas in which to live (Hill and Paynich 2010). This was largely because of the deterioration in housing and other public infrastructure brought on by the outward migration of stable wage earners as businesses continued to expand in these types of areas and laws continued to change to accommodate them (Vito et al. 2012). Similar characterisations were also found in Shaw and Mckay’s (1969) study, cited in Humphrey and Schmalleger (2011, p.62). They identified transitional zones as pervasively poor (with marginal opportunities for employment and heavy reliance on welfare by residents), heterogeneous (mixture of racial,

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ethnic and other social groups) with residents who are highly mobile (continually shifting population which contributes to the instability of the community).

These theories seem relevant in helping to further our understanding of the relationship between urban poverty and crime in Jamaica. However the heterogeneity characterisation may prove problematic in also capturing the ‘plural [nature of Jamaican] society which is based on sub-cultural separatism’ (Chang 2007, p.122) and class conflict resulting from competing desires and interests amongst a group of people now socially organised based on their achievements, wealth and capabilities (Stone 1973). However, the remaining aspects of concentric zone theory seem pertinent to understanding contemporary features of Jamaica’s urban inner-cities and their historical antecedents.

2.2.3.1 Historical Antecedents of Garrison Communities

During the early 19th century the urban slums of Jamaica’s West Kingston became places of refuge for the rural poor who migrated to the city (Stolzoff 2000) including displaced members of Rastafari who were then being targeted by the state police in relation to an infamous violent clash between the police and Rastafari adherents in Montego Bay (Buffonge 2001). Tivoli Gardens was the first garrison community and was established in 1963 by the Jamaican Labour Party (JLP) as part of the ‘slum clearance project’ (Rao and Ibanez 2003, p.16). The term ‘garrison’ was used because of their political organisation and affiliations. Garrisonisation involved the development of low-income housing schemes in the 1970s, following the clearing of large sections of shanty towns that had spring up in previous decades (Gray 1991). However it is believed that these clearances, especially that of the Rastafari shanty community known as Back-O-Wall was not properly planned as alternative accommodation for the indigent slum dwellers was not provided and was simply a way of

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striking back at the militant urban poor who identified themselves as political adversaries (Gray 1991). It also provided opportunities for the government at the time to break-up the shanty towns in order to reconstruct the area and its residents as ‘captive populations’ and proceed with an industrialisation strategy which promoted the fortunes of foreign and indigenous capital (Gray 1991, p.119). This helps us to understand why it has been ‘argued that creating, sustaining and supporting the growth of garrison communities was a process that was never an accident of history but purposefully nurtured for political ends’ which included obtaining majority votes (Figueroa (n.d.) cited in National Committee on Political

Tribalism and Kerr 1997, p. 8; see also Figueroa and Sives 2003).

Political parties in Jamaica compete freely for public votes and the party which succeeds in winning a simple majority of votes governs on behalf of the entire community (Ryan 1999). This feature of the Westminster model, which Jamaica inherited from Britain, has led to the development of an enduring political culture which is largely based on patron-clientelism (see Stone 1980; Stolzoff 2000). Patron-clientelism is an institutional outcome of Jamaica’s electoral system which can be identified by its ‘pork barrel’ and tribal features (Ryan 1999), in essence a politics of patronage that sustains rather than diminishes the prolongation of some of these troubled garrison communities.

In the past, politics of patronage stemmed from public and private investment decisions which took the form of housing infrastructure, council construction, casual work and the commitment of recurrent expenditure at the local level, whose disbursement was mediated by the political party in power (Austin 1984). Whether this remains the case currently is

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unjust economic system, political victimisation was the likely outcome (Lacey 1977) and this seemed endemic across Jamaica’s garrison communities.

Twelve out of the sixty political constituencies in Jamaica are considered to be garrisons (Heal 2015). These are perhaps amongst the most troubled communities in Jamaica today partly due to their location and political architecture. They are communities which are located in poor inner city areas mainly in Jamaica’s capital city of Kingston (Barker 2005) and were, and arguably still are, largely controlled by political party supporters of either of Jamaica’s two party political system, viz - JLP and the People’s National Party (Rao and Ibanez 2003). However this control has eroded over time due to growing apathy over Jamaica’s political system (Wesson 1984). The formation of these two parties during the 1930s saw in

subsequent decades their divisive impact upon deprived communities resulting in social and political unrest as they polarised loyalties and generated antagonisms through a tradition of clientelism and patronage (Bakan 1990; (Arnone and Cottrell 2004). In more recent decades the influence of politics on shaping the behaviours of garrison communities seems to have weakened. Munroe and Bertram (2006), cited in Boxhill et al. (2007, p.157) argue that the influence of state politics on the nature of crime and violence within these communities has diminished. However the impact of garrisonisation on the identities of urban communities in Kingston and their residents seems pervasive.

2.2.3.2 Twenty-first Century Topographies

Kingston and surrounding communities remain prime locations for garrison communities (see PIOJ 2011). These communities are known to be economically distressed, characterised by ‘high population density, unemployment’ (PIOJ 2013, p. 362) and high levels of public and private poverty. As a result many residents are often unable to legitimately find the means to

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live above a subsistence standard and their places of residence lack basic amenities and public service infrastructures that might be taken for granted in advanced economies (Henry- Lee 2005a).

Crime may be one response to these disadvantages if we are to follow the views of Robert Merton who introduced the notion of anomie or strain theory to locate the causes of crime in the normlessness or poor organisation of society, namely its culture and social structure (Henry and Einstadter 2006). Merton (1968) argued that structural blockages which young men in particular may experience in seeking to achieve conventional goals caused strain (see also Burton Jr and Cullen 1992). This strain predisposes especially males towards crime as an unconventional means to achieving conventional societal goals that are valorised by mainstream society (see Featherstone and Deflem 2003). This seems to correspond with the Jamaican context whereby approximately 30 per cent of youth in Jamaica are unattached to dominant institutions in that they are not involved in the formal labour market and are not attending school or participating in any skills training programme (PIOJ and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade 2009). Jamaica’s high youth unemployment rate stands at 37.7 per cent (PIOJ 2013) and poses a structural blockage for young males that may well produce a strain in the sense that Merton describes.

Tenement Yards

Tenement yards in Jamaica share a similar profile to that of garrison communities (see Daynes 2012) and can be found in many such communities. Masouri (2009) describes them as small communal spaces for living and undertaking washing and recreational activities engaged in by several families. The Statistical Institute of Jamaica (2010, p.1022) defines it as a space in which ‘a number of rented rooms [are located] in one premises, housing three or

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more households whereas the separate dwellings are not fully contained’. As such, tenement yards tend to reflect poor standards of living, are overcrowded and may well be located nearby or within squatter settlements. Squatter settlements or shanty towns are ‘areas which have developed without legal claims to the land and or authorisation from authorities to build on the captured land. As a consequence of the illegal or semi-legal status of squatters,

infrastructure and services are usually inadequate in these areas’ (Srinivas 2015, n.pn.).

Such settlements and their inhabitants have in the past been portrayed negatively in regard to the challenges they are deemed to present for the efficient operation of the state (see Potter and Lloyd-Evans 1998), particularly in relation to public safety and economic development (McGee 1984). Troubled communities are often located within squatter settlements and because of their marginalised, poor and devalued nature are often identified as ghettos (see Paprocki and Dolan 2009).

Jamaican ghettos are typically comprised of garrison communities, which as previously stated are geographical spaces which in the past were heavily controlled or aligned

politically, having community leaders known as ‘dons’ who act[ed] as gatekeepers (Moser and Holland 1997). As mentioned earlier, Jamaican politics continues to play an influential role in helping to shape the master identities of these communities. This is an observation which Henry-Lee (2007) acknowledges through her suggestion that politics remains a silent undercurrent of conflicts taking place within and between many of these deprived

communities. There is therefore a fine line between what constitutes the ghetto and garrison and it would be fallacious to assume that all garrison communities in Jamaica are ghettos as the latter may characterise other marginalised communities. However what seems to unify these two types of communities is the concentration effect of poverty and crime. As shown in

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Diagram 1, the demographic and crime concentration within the Jamaican context seems strongest in areas in and around Jamaica’s chief cities which are Kingston and Montego Bay.

Diagram 1: Map of Jamaica showing Population, Crime and Poverty Distributions across Parishes

Source: Modification of a map provided by D-maps.com using data obtained from the Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica (2014) and the Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions (2012)

Jamaica is divided into fourteen administrative sectors known as parishes (Gritzner 2004) (see Diagram 1). The capital city is Kingston, and Montego Bay which is the capital of Saint James, is the second city. Year ending 2013, 43.7 per cent of Jamaica’s total population of 2, 718 000 was living in Kingston, St. Andrew and St. Catherine and these were also the top three parishes in which the largest number of murders, rapes, aggravated assaults, robberies, break-ins and larcenies were committed (PIOJ 2013). The high concentration of people and violent criminal activities in these locations maps closely onto parishes that are either home to or nearby troubled communities.

18.4% 28% 19.3% 22.5% 13.2% 18.9% 10.8% 11.2% 32.5% 17.7% 28.6% Prevalence of Poverty (19.9%) 3% 4.2% 6.4% 2.8% 6.8% 2.6% % 5.3% 5.6% 7% 9.1% 19.1% 3.5% 24.6% 323 335 264 453 216 284 300 239 229 306 289 368 222

Category 1 (Major) Crime rate (314 per 100, 000 population) Parish population size as a % of the total population (2 723 200)

9.4%

21.5%

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In some ways these geographical patterns seem to correspond with the observation made by Massey (1996), cited in Xiong (2015, p.42) that areas that are most deteriorated, even within the context of inner city poverty, seem to have much higher crime rates than more stable lower-class environments. However this observation was not a perfect match when applied to the Jamaican context, in which rural areas (23.2 per cent) continue to register lower levels of violent crime but have the highest rates of poverty (PIOJ 2012) (please also refer to Diagram 1).

It is therefore necessary to clarify that in Jamaica not all urban communities may be considered poor and troubled, and not all troubled communities are located in urban areas. This is notwithstanding that the established prototype is that troubled communities are often located in poor urban areas (Henry-Lee 2007) and the urban poor’s involvement in crime, not just in Jamaica, but also in the rest of the Latin America and Caribbean, may be attributed to a number of factors which are not limited to geography. Amongst the factors identified by Ayres (1998) are their inability to transition from traditional to modern customs,

proliferation of squatter settlements, substantial decline in urban expenditures and public services and untargeted social programmes. Such effects have disproportionately affected quality of individual and communal life and helped to shape perceptions of crime and violence as practical means of accomplishing mainstream goals (Ayres 1998).

Such structural challenges as outlined above support the notion of strain as a possible cause of crime. Merton’s classic formulation has informed general strain theory (GST) which broadens the sources of crime to include a) blocked access to achieving desired goals b) loss of valued objects and c) the introduction of negative stimuli (Paternoster and Mazerolle 1994). Essentially crime and by extension criminal recidivism may be viewed as individual

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adaptations to perceived strain (Farnworth and Leiber 1989; Agnew 2000). These correlations are supported by social disorganisation theory which does not limit the units of analysis to individuals. Social disorganisation theory explains how the lack of legitimate economic opportunities in isolated and impoverished communities or neighbourhoods supports a breakdown in traditional institutions of social control such as the family and the school (Gaines and Miller 2007). This breakdown leads to the substitution of these traditional institutions with deviant peers and gangs mainly because of their inability to provide immediate ways out of poverty and exert control over residents (Siegel 2012).

However the question of whether the impoverishment of certain neighbourhoods alone best explains the breakdown in traditional institutions of social control is raised by Wilson and Kelly (1982) who envisage this to also be the result of moral laxity and permissiveness. However, a combination of both theories seems to offer a more compelling explanation for the high number of organised criminal gangs in Jamaica. A gang threat assessment survey conducted in Jamaica in 2009 determined that there were over 200 criminal gangs in operation (Llewwllyn 2011; Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica 2010). It is therefore obvious that some form of social breakdown has or is taking place within Jamaican society.

Wilson and Kelly (1982) assume that a type of moral crime prevention was needed to restore order and reduce deviance in situations where a breakdown in social control occurred as a result of moral laxity and permissiveness. These suggestions also highlight the need and importance of situational crime prevention (SCP) considerations. SCP is a ‘set of methods for controlling behaviour in inconspicuous and invisible ways which help to reduce the

occurrence of criminal events and guide conduct towards lawful outcomes’ (Garland 2000, p.1). In the absence of these considerations, poor surveillance and generally ineffective SCP

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strategies implicitly communicate the message that crime pays. It will be important to explore if poor surveillance played a part in the return to prison of offenders and Chapter 5 will address some of these issues.

Deprived communities are not necessarily bereft of stability or norms that generate

predictable and positive relations. For example, within the Jamaican context the community ‘don’ may be viewed as a type of rule creator or moral entrepreneur whose significant influence over the years gradually made traditional forms of social control appear obsolete within garrison communities. Caribbean criminologists, like Harriott (2000) and Henry-Lee (2005a), have shown how the breakdown of traditional institutions of social control and the Jamaican state’s non-involvement in the affairs of garrison residents supported the rise of the Jamaican don. As such the don may also be viewed as at the epicentre of the garrison

subculture which in some sense remains vibrant not least because of the social value of badness- honour. Badness-honour is about gaining respect through often antisocial responses to perceived disrespect and it falls in the mix of motivations for committing violent crime in Jamaica (Gray 2003a). In short, the garrison culture seems to be part and parcel of the infamous Jamaican drugs, gun and don subcultures. All of these indications of social disorganisation are assessed in the next section of this chapter.