Dismantling the garrisons: Post-incursion social interventions

Peta-Anne Baker, Contributor

Many people are hoping that the events of the last few weeks will result in garrison communities across Jamaica being dismantled. The existence of these mini-states, created and run first by political and then by criminal interests for several decades now, has seriously undermined any hope for a sustained reduction in the levels of violent crime in the country, and conceivably more important, any hope for sustainable improvements to the quality of life of most of the people who live in these communities. Both civil society groups and the government seem to agree that 'social interventions' must accompany the security 'incursions'.

Several agencies have been doing good but unrecognised work at the grass-roots level in many of the same communities that are now (or will shortly be) facing curfews and passbooks. The Peace Management Initiative (PMI) and the Citizen Security and Justice Programme in the Ministry of National Security have emerged as major players in garrison and inner-city communities across the island. The Dispute Resolution Foundation through its work with the citizens of communities, such as Flanker in St James, has promoted the establishment of community mediation centres. There is the much-respected private-sector initiative the Grace and Staff Community Development Foundation, and the work of NGOs like Sistren Theatre Collective in Hannah Town and Fletchers Land. A rejuvenated Boys' Town is expanding programmes to reach and rescue youth through education and sports, and the Children's First agency continues its innovative programmes in Spanish Town.

These groups enjoy positive relationships with leaders and members of the communities in which they work, and many develop programmes which try to facilitate and be responsive to the communities' own analysis of their situation. These participatory approaches have yielded good, though not always, lasting results. Peace councils, women's groups and other types of community organisations have indeed been formed. The number of homicides has declined in many of the places where the PMI has been working. Young persons have been retrieved from early careers of crime and returned to educational and personal-development programmes which will, hopefully, yield a less deadly fruit. Some remarkable results have been achieved with limited resources and institutional support.

However, many agencies, and the police themselves (which arguably is the only state agency to sustain the promotion and support of youth organisations over the years), regularly complain that their work has floundered because of a lack of follow, through at policy and public and private institutional levels. Garbage still goes uncollected. No new jobs have been created. In some instances, schools have been upgraded but their graduates still carry the stigma of their place of residence into an already competitive marketplace.

Graduates of programmes to promote self-employment must surmount real hurdles as they try to create a decent livelihood for themselves. A specialist in small and micro-enterprise development spoke recently about the huge socio-emotional burden carried by the women and young persons with whom she works. One consequence of their repeated exposure to personal and social violence was a weakened capacity for self-directed action. The specialist stated that she now recognises that enterprise development must pay attention to socio-cultural factors like these.

Dismantling the garrisons

But this is not a call for more psychologists, social workers or counsellors (currently and understandably an in-demand group of human-service workers). Psychological, and even educational interventions, targeting individual children and adults though necessary, will not be enough. In any event, services such as those provided by the Child Guidance Clinics cannot handle the existing, much less, an expanded demand. Dismantling the garrisons is going to require cultural and structural changes involving not just residents of the 'inner city', but 'outer city' dwellers as well.

First, we must acknowledge the impact of years of stigma (disrespect) on the attitudes of many of the people who live in garrison communities. A lack of appreciation of this phenomenon is what causes members of the outer city to be mystified by some people's proclaimed loyalty to the man of the moment. While it is true that some of the proclamations are extracted by threat, several persons genuinely perceive the local don as benefactor, and their sole defender. It is understandable that persons who, after years of denigration, would become defensive and suspicious of outsiders and fiercely loyal to anyone who claims to be their protector. (Recall how the former member of Parliament for west Kingston described the relationship he had with his constituents in a recent television interview. While the image - suspend the issue of its credibility for the moment - of a loving father tending to all his children's needs is heart-warming, it is not an appropriate characterisation of the relationship between adults.)

To neglect the contribution of the wider society, not just politicians but also employers, planners, social agencies and donors, to the creation of many of the attitudes and behaviours that are found in the garrison will severely limit the impact and sustainability of any proposed social intervention in those communities themselves. In much the same way as we need to open up the garrisons to new ideas and ways of relating, so, too, must the social groups in the outer city confront their own socially excluding or prejudiced attitudes and behaviours.

For example, we are not (yet) paying enough attention to the institutional arrangements needed to eliminate the alternative systems of governance which the garrison has produced. Current proposals make the standard nod in the direction of consulting the community, but this acknowledgement is undermined when we learn that the primary goal of the transformation process is to reassert the role of the state in these communities. What kind of state? What is its proper role? This is a matter about which there is quite a divergence of views at the national level.

Let's hold the applause if this means that the state is simply going to become the new 'don', managing the administration of everything from garbage collection to justice. I am not convinced that the events of the last few weeks will really usher in a new dispensation, either in the garrison communities themselves, or in the wider society.

It is not only the garrison communities which have very narrow and clientilistic relationships with legitimate or illegitimate authority figures. Too many of us prefer the security of a 'leader' who relieves us of having to take responsibility for our actions and decisions.

"My way or the highway" is only the latest version of a well-worn motto. How many new denominations have been launched in Jamaica in the last 50 years as a result of the same attitude? As Jamaicans, we are not known for our capacity for dialogue and consensus building. But perhaps this is a moment in which to do some capacity building and restart the debate about how to create community institutions which can exercise effective control over the decisions about development at the local level, and which can also contribute to the wider reform of the governance process, which more established civic groups are now promoting.

Civic dialogue

The social agencies and groups that work at the grass-roots level also need to come together in much the same way as the private sector and other groups have started a civic dialogue. They need to identify points of convergence and develop strategies for translating the opportunity offered by the current crisis into a process of lasting change. It will be a testing time for more reasons than one. The funding now on offer will reignite the dreams and promote the individualism of many an NGO leader whose programmes had been shelved due to a lack of resources. Our NGOs do not have a strong history of being able to hold together when new money is in play. They also lack a vision of the strategic roles they can play in the policy arena, preferring to focus on the day-to-day implementation of programmes.

A statement by our Roman Catholic bishops recently highlighted the contribution of persons other than politicians and drug dealers, many of them Christian, to the current situation. The implication being that its correction and ultimate solution calls for the combined engagement of not just high-profile and elected individuals, but also of organisations, many of them Christian.

It seems that the garrisons that need dismantling may exist above as well as below Cross Roads. This is why we need to be concerned about the way the language being used to describe the current crisis is becoming more and more the language of national security and counter-insurgency rather than the language of sustainable development. The emphasis on the former rather than the latter, which effectively continues to privilege the interests of 'uptown' over the rights of 'downtown', will produce only a short-lived containment of the threat to our future as a nation.

Dr Peta-Anne Baker is the coordinator of the Social Work Programme at the University of the West Indies. She may be contacted at pab.ja2009@gmail.com. Feedback may also be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.