THE CHALLENGE to our society of what to do with the number of persons deported to Jamaica each year from the United States, Canada and Britain remains, notwithstanding reports of a decline in the numbers.
While a definitive link has not been established between major crimes being committed and the increase in the numbers of deportees over the past five years, the social problems generated by their presence still have to be addressed.
As we have reported in today's edition, a previous study done by Dr. Bernard Headley of the University of the West Indies does not support the theory that deportees are principal perpetrators of crime in Jamaica. Yet the police remain convinced that some of the
criminal networks are being organised by these persons with their overseas connections.
No society can expect to conduct business as usual when between 3,000 and 4,000 people many of whom have tenuous links if any with local communities are suddenly dumped on its doorsteps each year.
The police have frequently pointed to the difficulty they have in monitoring the movements of these people both from a legislative framework and from the point of view of available resources.
Reports of men being deported as many as four times and being able to find their way back into the United States point to a level of sophisticated criminality that has to be ruptured. Many of the persons sent back home were incarcerated. They have acquired knowledge and skills of how to beat systems even more sophisticated than what we have locally.
We therefore need, as in other aspects of crime fighting, to find ways to keep one step ahead of those who are bent on a life of crime. For others who want to turn over a new leaf and be integrated in the society, new policies must be developed so as not to create, unintentionally, another underclass of social misfits.
We have yet, for example, to devise a policy of receiving these persons who are let loose at the airport by foreign agents. They arrive here, some having left the island as toddlers, to a veritable no-man's land. They can hardly be expected to become model citizens overnight without some system in place to give them direction. Without any doubt, some will gravitate towards the crime they have become accustomed to. These are the ones the security forces need to be able to deal with firmly and quickly.
This is a problem that will not go away immediately and the sooner we develop and implement appropriate policies, the better we will be able to manage the attendant challenges.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
