The Tribune

The Caribbean has often suffered from a surfeit of unemployment and economic malaise, both of which are linked to rises in criminal activity. Yet when one compares the rate of criminal activity aimed at tourists in the Caribbean to other similar destinations, one the Caribbean is doing an exceptionally good job in ensuring the safety of visitors. Chesney-Lind and Lind (1986) found that visitors to Hawaii experienced more violent and non-violent crime than did residents.

Still, the perception of crime, even when it is not directed at tourists, is a factor that influences travel decisions. Yet the problem is not addressed by the presence of all-inclusive, enclave tourist resorts that seal off visitors from the local populations. The problem with such resorts is that much of the experience fails to link to the rest of the economy, and this means the economic benefits of tourism are not distributed but, instead, tend to be concentrated in the hands of major corporations that develop these properties. Indeed, one can almost think of these as cruise ships that do not float, given their lack of integration with the rest of the national economies of the Caribbean.

Illicit drugs

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Caribbean has undoubtedly heard of Rastafarianism, a religion whose adherents believe in the sanctity of smoking marijuana. Yet the regional drug problem is not one where marijuana plays a major role. Instead, the Caribbean serves as a way station for the transfer of cocaine (from south to north) and guns (from north to south). It is difficult to patrol all of the waterways in order to stop the trade flows, and local law enforcement capabilities are, in any case, inadequate for the task.

Operation Kingfish was an attempt by the US, the UK and Canada to reduce this flow by assisting Jamaica in its patrol of the 65 cays, islands and rocks that are part of its sovereign territory. This success of Operation Kingfish in reducing the drug scourge is one of the factors that may be reducing the Jamaican murder rate.

Yet the problem is that as more drugs are interdicted in Jamaican waters, the trade may simply move to locales where there is less enforcement, causing an increase in violence in those locations.

Just as organised crime has infiltrated all of Italian society, and is now its largest employer and economic sector (Kiefer, 2007), drug traffickers have been able to influence politicians in the Caribbean to look the other way.

A report from Scotland Yard over the disappearance of William Herbert, the country’s former ambassador to the United Nations and deputy prime minister, noted that he was “rumoured to be heavily involved in laundering drugs money through his bank in Anguilla”.

Gangs

In Jamaica, ‘garrison communities’ proliferated in the 1970s, as the Jamaican Labour Party (JLP) and the People’s National Party (PNP) sought to create political hegemony through intimidation as well as the ballot box. It all began with the creation of Tivoli Gardens by Edward Seaga in an effort to secure an electoral base, and was matched by Anthony Spaulding, who set up a counterpart in South St Andrew (Abrahams, 2000, p. 232).

From this initial base, a number of similar strongholds emerged and the two parties set out to arm their constituents. Politics had become a blood sport. In Jamaica, the gangs were the creations of the state, whereas in other countries, while they may have been intimately intertwined with the political workings, gangs were undoubtedly external to the state in their origins. Yet Jamaica’s garrison communities soon broke free of the shackles of their political masters and, like Frankenstein’s monster, they took on a life of their own. With illicit drugs, garrison dons no longer had to rely on political parties for their livelihoods. Instead, the deal was about to be reversed with the dons having the upper hand over the politicians.

In Trinidad and Tobago, a ‘gang culture’ has emerged, which “some believe [. . .] can be attributed to a loss of respect for the state and the rule of law [owing to] a series of high-level corruption scandals” and the large income disparities fostered in the aftermath of the oil and natural gas boom (The Economist, 2008). Guns and drugs are the main culprits in an escalation of murder that has hung over the country, with 53 per cent of all murders being related to gang warfare over a four-year period beginning in 2003 (The Economist, 2008).

A recurrent theme is that the high murder rates are the direct result of large-scale criminal deportation from the US and the UK to the Caribbean. While this idea has been largely discredited by Madjd-Sadjadi and Alleyne (2007), this perception causes friction between local residents, who resent the immigration policies of the US, and visitors to the islands.

Crime damages society and the economy

Despite little evidence that it is taking place, the tourism industry worries constantly about tourists being caught in the crossfire. The problem is that each murder of a vacationing American is amplified via a 24/7 news cycle, which feeds on the fears of many.

The deaths or arrests of Americans abroad resonate through the television and radio conversations that make up the US media landscape. The jailing of Amanda Knox for murder in Italy, and the conviction and imprisonment of hikers trespassing in Iran, played on a fear that Americans have of being caught in a judicial system that is alien to their way of thinking. Similarly, the loss of a single American tourist in Hawaii would not strike the same chord as the death of one on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. For tourism-dependent economies, the mere thought of a Natalee Holloway-inspired boycott causes unprecedented fear because their entire economic system is utterly dependent on maintaining a positive image for overseas tourists.

Crime and tourism performance

Economic costs: Crime acts as a cancer to the economy, causing the system to work against itself. As more spending is placed on security, which is fundamentally a protection of existing assets, less goes into productive endeavours that can grow the economy and create the jobs necessary to alleviate economic deprivation.

Increased security also breeds a reduction in the level of trust, and thus employees are less motivated and productive. A report by the UNODC and World Bank (2007) estimates that if Caribbean countries could match the lower crime levels found in Costa Rica (which has a homicide rate of 8.1/100,000), economic growth rates would increase, with the greatest impact in Jamaica and Haiti, and to a lesser extent in the Dominican Republic and Guyana.

A lost generation: According to the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development (2010, p. 71), more than 70 per cent of all murders, 60 per cent of all rapes, and 65 per cent of all crimes are committed by those aged under 30 years-old. Youth are far more likely to be involved in gangs, have higher unemployment rates, and are more likely to be victims of violent crime. This represents a lost generation in more ways than one. As youth find themselves increasingly isolated from the productive sector, they are more likely to develop anti-social behaviours that will cause irreparable harm to themselves and society.

Indeed, lost tourism revenues for the CARICOM region due to crime are estimated to be in excess of $200 million per year (CARICOM, 2010).

Reduced growth in foreign direct investment: According to a 2006 World Bank survey, nearly 40 per cent of all Caribbean managers reported that crime reduced the likelihood of expanding their business while, on average, direct security costs for private firms in Jamaica added 2 per cent to their overall cost base (The Economist, 2008).

There were also high indirect costs, since firms could not stay open at night and had to institute security protocols that ended up taking more time than if they were operating in a safer environment. Those workers who are best able to move, do so, and the World Bank has found that of the 10 countries with the greatest number of college-educated emigrants, eight of them are in the Caribbean (World Bank, 2011).

Halting the impact of crime on Caribbean tourism: The reaction on various Caribbean islands to security measures has varied widely. It is unclear how effective curfews, harsher punishments, the reintroduction of the death penalty and increased training and recruitment of quality law enforcement personnel have been. Curfews seem to be more acceptable than the military taking the place of the police as the enforcers of domestic law.

Corruption remains an important issue that needs to be addressed, especially if the Caribbean is to come to grips with the drug scourge that eats at its societies. There seems to be no need to suggestions of how to reduce crime, but unless we attack the root causes in the Caribbean these measures will be nothing more than bandages over a deepening wound. Unless the central issues of relative and absolute economic deprivation, gun and drug trafficking, corruption and an ineffective and ineffectual judicial system are addressed (Harriott, 2002), the Caribbean will not fully recover, and only if the countries of the Caribbean collaborate can they achieve lasting success.

Employment generation and training programmes: Perhaps the biggest challenge is to provide the youth of the Caribbean with well-paying, full-time, permanent jobs. The exodus of the best and brightest may assist with the balance of payments by providing needed remittance income, but does little to remedy the situation. The lack of opportunities for constructive engagement lead wayward youth to pursue anti-social behaviours. In addition, poor monetary policies in countries such as in Jamaica, which lead to high interest rates, only contribute to shortsighted thinking that is inimical to furthering education.

Tertiary education has too often been focused on the creation of college graduates, rather than being skills-based and vocational in orientation. For example, in Jamaica, while tertiary education in 2009-2010 accounted for 18 per cent of the Ministry of Education’s budget, 70 per cent of the expenses were concentrated in just two schools: the University of the West Indies, Mona and the University of Technology. Only 30 per cent of all tertiary education spending went to the other 15 post-secondary institutions on the island (Jamaica Ministry of Education, 2011, Table 5-2(a)). When one considers that both universities are located in Kingston, and also happen to be situated across the street from one another, this intensive spending is rather problematic. Given that only a quarter of the population of Jamaica lives in the parish of Kingston & St Andrew (where the city of Kingston is located), with about another 29 per cent in the four surrounding parishes of Portland, St Thomas, St Catherine and St Mary, this leaves between 46 and 75 per cent of the population without direct access to the two major tertiary institutions (Statistical Institute of Jamaica, 2011).

As noted by Madjd-Sadjadi (2005), apprenticeship and vocational education programmes fill a major void, and can be used to raise the skill levels of high school graduates quickly and effectively. We would recommend that Caribbean countries concentrate their limited tertiary funds on endeavours that will be of a more broad-based nature, and emphasise skills that would be beneficial to the tourism industry.

Corruption: Corruption is an ongoing battle that makes it difficult to fight crime, because the same people who are sworn to uphold the law are also breaking it. At the same time, widespread corruption breeds contempt for the rule of law among the populace. According to Harriott (2002, p. 12), “the CCM report [. . .] estimates that drug corruption provides Caribbean civil servants with some $320 million in income annually. This is not an insignificant problem”.

Caribbean nations have tried to combat this problem by increasing educational requirements and improving screening processes when they hire. However, when the police and other civil servants are not well paid, when individuals are given wide latitude without proper oversight, or when incentives to act in an honest manner are not in place, the temptation to engage in corruption increases.

Law enforcement versus social measures: Addressing the root causes is a long-term process that does not have the short-run payback of more punitive measures. It is far easier and more visible to go after drug dealers than it is to increase educational attainment and legitimate employment opportunities, so that fewer individuals will be drawn into the drug trade in the first place.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Regional Task Force on Crime and Security was established in 2001 to allow the governments of the region to cooperate on criminal and security matters. The US and the UK have provided monetary and technical assistance to the militaries of various CARICOM countries. But it is hard to effectively combat crime when the judicial system fails in its duty to punish offenders.

Nearly half of all rapes, three-quarters of all murders, and more than 90 per cent of all burglaries are never solved in Trinidad and Tobago (Douglas, 2010). With the chances of being caught, let alone convicted and incarcerated, so abysmal, criminality flourishes. The witness protection programme in the country is in shambles, as witnesses who no longer feel they can be protected actively refuse to assist in prosecutions. Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, has called for the removal of obstacles to the imposition of the death penalty, which will draw the ire of international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International. Yet without an effective death penalty, given the low rate of conviction, criminals are in control.

Among CARICOM governments, only Guyana, Barbados and Belize use the Caribbean Court of Appeals as the final appellate court, while the Privy Council continues to be the court of final appeal for both Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. Yet the Privy Council has not allowed an execution in Trinidad and Tobago since 1999, despite having 42 individuals sitting on death row (Dayle, 2011), and there has not been an execution in Jamaica since 1988 (Spaulding, 2011), while six people languish on death row in that country).

The low rates of execution, and even sentencing to death, contrast sharply to states in the US that have close to the same number of total murders. Virginia, which has about 400 murders each year (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2011), in contrast to Trinidad and Tobago’s 500 per year (Dowlat, 2010), has executed 32 people since Trinidad and Tobago last used the death penalty (US Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2011). Texas, which has slightly fewer murders than Jamaica, has executed 444 people since 1988 (US Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2011), while Jamaica has executed precisely zero.

Without reform that strengthens the criminal justice system to balance the need to protect the public against the legitimate rights of the accused, law enforcement will be unable to address the issue of crime. From the standpoint of the tourism industry, without final closure, cases will continue to linger in the public mind and this will mean that the damage of a Natalee Holloway disappearance cannot be mitigated with the passage of time. Justice delayed is justice denied, not just for the victims and their families, but for the entire society.

Local involvement in tourism development and empowerment: Emphasis should be placed on greater local involvement in the Caribbean, as well as the development of local communities. Local communities need to be more involved in the planning of tourism development so that a better appreciation for the society’s history and culture can be conveyed.

The problem with the current mass “sea, sun and sand” model is that it can be replicated anywhere in the Caribbean. However, tourism based on unique characteristics of the locality is not so easily transplanted. For example, in Jamaica, Port Royal, known for its harbouring of pirates before it was mostly submerged in a June 7, 1692, earthquake and tsunami, could be restored to its former glory and attract history buffs and kids with an interest in swashbucklers. Eco-tourism could be developed to take travellers to explore the Blue Mountains, while the Bob Marley Museum might see additional attractions surrounding it that showcase other contributors to the reggae, ska and rocksteady music genres that originated on the island.

By moving away from the mass “sea, sun and sand” model, and towards heritage, cultural, ecological, health and community tourism, product differentiation will occur, and this will give those tourism niches significant market power and allow for greater community involvement and local ownership.

This local involvement will mean less relative deprivation, as tourism earners are more equally spread throughout the community, leading to a reduction in crime and alienation (Duperly-Pinks, 2002). Such local involvement should go a long way in creating the much needed “organic link” between the industry and the people (Boxill and Frederick, 2002; Hayle, 2002), which will help ensure the industry’s long-term survival, particularly in wake of neo-liberal globalisation that seeks to reduce competitive industries to the lowest common denominator.

As individuals and communities are empowered, psychological well-being, and self-esteem is improved. By linking communities to the developments, there is created a long-term planning aspect that leads to sustainable development and greater stakeholder input in the decision-making process.

One final possibility, provided criminality can be reduced to levels more common in the rest of the world, is the creation of dark tourism (Sharpley and Stone, 2009; Lennon and Foley, 2000) out of the sites of former garrison communities in Jamaica and other locales where crime once took hold.

Dark tourism, which has as its basis the seeking out of the macabre, has made tourist attractions out of Auschwitz and the Sixth Floor Museum of the former Texas School Book Depository in Dallas (the location from where Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy in 1963).

Conclusion

Although crimes against tourists are rare, when they do occur, especially if they are violent and unsolved, the effects on the local tourism-dependent economies of the Caribbean can be devastating. Much of the public perception of violence in the Caribbean is based on these rather rare events or mind-numbing statistics that detail how dangerous it is to be a resident of the country, without considering that visitors tend to be protected from violence.

At the same time, the violent nature of the external environment and the enclave tourism response of the all-inclusive resort has made product differentiation in the Caribbean difficult. Without effective product differentiation, the Caribbean will gradually lose its ability to compete for high-end tourism dollars with places that offer a less violent backdrop.

Proposed solutions to the problems are many, but they require an integrated approach that not only addresses the issue of crime in society but also the central question of how to punish criminality and how to address its root causes. In the end, the Caribbean needs to extricate itself from its enclave tourism mentality to ensure it can compete effectively in a globalised, neo-liberal world.