The lack of Social Statistics and the callous disregard for Human Life

I do not like crime or criminals but I understand certain crimes and criminals. I understand gang violence and I understand financial related crimes. I do not like it and do not want any crime or criminality around me but I can put certain crimes into perspectives. Up until now on hearing a report of a crime against some person, I would say, "something in a something". A person got caught up in some under the table, dodgy dealings with the wrong person and met some sort of retribution as a result.

However, when it comes to crimes against children and old people, I am at a lost because I do not understand it and I cannot frame it into context or perspective. I am totally confused by it because I do not know what is gained from it and can only conclude that mental illness is more rampant among the Jamaican population than was previously thought. It is like they wake up every morning and drink "mad-puss-piss". This is nothing but a cold, callous disregard for the life of children and human life in general. We do not know why the Jamaican society reached this depth of depravity. BUT the writing has been on the wall since we have been living with well over 1000 murders per year for many decades and that many murders must affect our mental health.

To some extent Poverty does contribute to crime but the link between Poverty and Crime in Jamaica is the Mother of all Excuse. In Jamaica once we can find an excuse for something then we use that excuse to legitimize that something. It is as if our excuse makes it okay. We often say that poverty is the root of violence, if so then it stands to reason that the poorer a country is the more violence and crime that country should have but that is not true.

Jamaica is not the poorest country in the world, not by a long shot and if you ranked the world’s countries based on their GDP Per capita income and the percentage of people living below the poverty level with the poorest being at the top and the riches at the bottom then Jamaica is ranked 91 according to Global Finance magazine (October 30, 2014). Which means there are 90 countries out of a total of 184 that are poorer than Jamaica and yet Jamaica is ranked 6th in the world when it comes to the murder rate which is an improvement because for many years we were ranked 2nd in the world. Most of the countries that are poorer than Jamaica does not even make the top 10 with regards to the murder rate, most not even the top 100. So why is it so easy to murder people in Jamaica compared to countries that are poorer than Jamaica? It is safe to say that in Jamaica, we have created a culture of violence that have normalize violent crimes. 

 

I do not understand how we intend to solve any of our problems without a detail study of our society. The good thing about social statistics is that it highlights where the problem is in our society using actual data. Without this data, all we are going to do is guess where the problem is, with everyone having a different opinion on the source of the problem and if we cannot collectively identify the problems then how are we to collectively come up with a solution. With the proper statistical data, we could quickly highlight, for example, what are some of the driving forces behind crime and criminality within our unique reality.

What do we know about all the criminals that are currently locked up in our prisons across the island? Have we studied their history, to see if we can find some common thread that took them down this path? It is far too easy to just say poverty and very simplistic to think that all we need to do is provide them with a job and all would be well. It seems a lot of people's brains are not wired for a job and not wired properly for that matter and we need to know why. There are countries on this planet that are poorer than Jamaica with very high poverty rates and still do not have Jamaica's crime rate, most not even close.

The fact is we do not know what drives criminality. Yes, we can have a good guess at some reasons but we really do not know for sure. We do not know how criminals were socialized and brought up in our society? What made them criminals. On an individual level they may seem like isolated cases but I am sure once we start to collect and collate their detail data we will see patterns that exist within our society, that is driving them to where they are now. We need detail study of our unique reality, what drives people to be so callous and cold towards their fellow human beings.

For all the criminals in our prison system we have no idea who they really are. We have no idea about their family history, how they were socialized and brought up and how that might contribute to their lack of education and criminal history. Now if we had been collecting and collating this data for decades we would have been able to identify patterns and problems that would could address and provide real targeted social intervention. I know for a fact that most Jamaicans including the Government do not want a detail study of the effects of migration on crime and society because everyone is too concerned with the remittance money. I also know most do not want a detail study of the effects of single family household on children.

How many of our criminals in locks up are barrel pickneys? How much are from single family households? How many of them were born to parents who were children themselves? How many of them were kicked out of their houses at a young age? I could go on and on. I read the story of Ladaisha “Mackerel” Francis and how she was thrown out of her house at 15 after getting pregnant and had to do whatever a young girl had to do to survive. Under the same circumstances I wonder what a young boy would do to survive. Young woman can find man, but young men are more likely to find a gun and take their rage out on society.

What we are is not serious about trying to solve any problems. Preferring instead to pay lip-service to it. We are not performing any deep statistical analyst, to identify root causes. We have not collected any relevant statistical data because we are afraid to open pandoras box. We do not have any real information about these incidents, and I am not talking about what person A might have said to person B. I am talking about an in-depth statistical study to find out who Person A and Person B really are. Where do they come from, what are their living conditions and how were they socialized in society. Who are their parents and how were their parents raised. Do they have parents or guardians? Are they from single family broken homes? Did their parents migrate? Is there a father at home, are they barrel children? What is the literacy level of the parents. How old were they when they became parents. If we collected enough data, then we should be able to see patterns and trends highlighting root-causes which would help us find solutions. For example, If we analyze every prisoner in Jamaica, then maybe we get enough data to identify problems and possibly formulate solutions to minimize those problems. 

One politician the other day was encouraging migration because all he could see was remittance. He did not care about the short term and long-term negative effects of migration on society.  Too many of our leaders are simple-minded and shortsighted.