Police Killings In Jamaica - Race Not A Factor, Figures Much Higher

[jberryhill]

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/News/Jamaican-police-increasingly-facing-murder-charges

Since 2000, security forces have reported killing nearly 3,000 people on the island of 2.7 million. Last year, 258 people died at the hands of law enforcement. In comparison, police fatally shot 13 people last year in Chicago, a US city with the same population as Jamaica.

Almost all of those killed have been written off by police as armed criminals who died in shootouts. A tiny percentage of the cases have made it to the courts, and only one Jamaican officer has been convicted of an unlawful killing since 2006, according to a 2013 human rights report by the US State Department.

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. Dumb

[jberryhill]

4. The problem of failure to reign in police militarization and killings goes beyond race

...and goes beyond the US



Unless the point is that "Jamaica is not a civilized place in the first instance, and therefore we cannot learn anything from their efforts to reduce police violence" or something along those lines.

But they have had a larger problem they are addressing with significant results. The question is "how"?

[malaise]

10. I disagree

We got a lot of help from Reagan et al.
There was an ABC article on the weekend. The truth is that police forces need independent commissions to rein them in - they are out of control.

[louis-t]

2. Wow! 258. Does Jamaica have a really high crime rate?

I've heard Kingston is kind of dangerous.

[malaise]

11. Parts of Kingston are dangerous

and yes our crime rate is disgusting

[malaise]

3. They are now being charged and sent to prison

The numbers are still way too high but they're down to 100 this year.

There are other factors which expkain he decline including the Leahy amendment which cuts off supplies to the police. Police killings went up in the late 70s when the ideological war was raging and loads of American weapons flooded our inner city. Christopher Coke aka Dudus is the son of one of dons (Jim Brown - head of the Showers posse) from Seaga's (aka CIAga) constituency. These dons sold drugs in Britain, the US and Canada with impunity.

[jberryhill]

5. Yes, it's slightly improving. Perhaps the US could learn something from what is happening there

I found this an interesting story this morning:

http://www.compasscayman.com/caycompass/2014/12/01/Cayman-cop-convicted-of-murder-in-Jamaica/

[malaise]

9. There was an ABC report here on the weekend

showing that establishing INDECOM (the independent commission that overseas the police) has made a difference.

[brindis_desala]

6. Pointless comparison

Jamaica is a tiny impoverished post-colonial third world country struggling to contain a violent drug trade cynically expanded in 1970's to destabilize the Manley government for its alliance with Cuba and the Soviet bloc. Plus your statistics for 2013 Chicago police killings are wildly inaccurate.
"the number of police-involved shootings fell to a five-year low in 2013. Last year, 42 people were shot by a Chicago police officer."
http://www.chicagoreporter.com/data-black-chicagoans-higher-risk-being-shot-police#.VIX6fclNdPS

[jberryhill]

8. "your statistics for 2013 Chicago police killings are wildly inaccurate"

They are not my statistics.

I apologize for reading a news article today and thinking it was interesting in relation to police violence, and one country's struggle with it.

Please pardon me for finding the article interesting.

[TeeYiYi]

7. Killings by Utah police outpacing gang, drug, child-abuse homicides...

By ERIN ALBERTY | The Salt Lake Tribune
First Published Nov 23 2014 10:36AM    •    Last Updated Nov 24 2014 09:30 am

Over a five-year period, data show that fatal shootings by police officers in Utah ranked second only to homicides of intimate partners.

In the past five years, more Utahns have been killed by police than by gang members.

Or drug dealers. Or from child abuse.

And so far this year, deadly force by police has claimed more lives — 13, including a Saturday shooting in South Jordan — than has violence between spouses and dating partners.

<snip>

Through October, 45 people had been killed by law enforcement officers in Utah since 2010…

http://www.sltrib.com/news/1842489-155/killings-by-utah-police-outpacing-gang?fullpage=1

TYY