Bahamians Should Be Critically Concerned about The Level of Criminality in The Bahamas

Some members of the Royal Bahamas Police Force (past and present) have been accused of working on the opposite side of the law and in engaging in misconduct in the investigation and prosecution of criminal cases

The Bahamas Crime Crisis

The Police, Crime And Criminality

By Charles Fawkes

Nassau, The Bahamas

07/05/2004

HOUSE OF LABOUR:  Given the revelation of the Lorequin Commission of Inquiry regarding the alleged criminal conduct of individuals of the Defence Force and the shortcomings of the police force, Bahamians should be critically concerned about the level of criminality in The Bahamas.  Bahamian workers these days are living behind barbed wire fences, steel barred windows and doors because of the fear of crime- despite the high profile of the police and their high-powered public relations campaign.

Crime in The Bahamas continues to climb despite mounting national concern, the introduction of stiffer penalties for offenders and increased police visibility throughout local communities.  The crime figures for this year are expected to continue the upward spiral and all indications are that crime will continue to mushroom.

In almost every area of serious crime, the trend continues to be a movement upward – upward in terms of both quantity and severity.  Most social analysts do not wish to accept the quarterly figure that the police some times use to justify their approach to crime as correct.  Statistics can be manipulated unless the whole picture is given.

The crime issue has been the subject of widespread public debate and will continue to be an issue of national importance.  Before coming to power the PLP had foreshadowed taking a heavier hand in the control of crime and in the administration of justice.  From subsequent debates in the House of Parliament, many politicians seemed prepared to deny convicts all civil liberties and to transform The Bahamas into a police state in the name of combating crime; and, on this wave of alarmism, support could be galvanized for laws with stiffer penalties for criminal offenses, for capital punishment and for the enforcement of archaic laws mandating the beating of convicts as part of sentencing.

Despite all of these perceived crime-fighting initiatives, there has been no noticeable impact on the crime crisis.  As a matter of fact, a more daring and open element has been added to criminal activity in recent years and even some members of the police force (past and present) have been accused of working on the opposite side of the law and in engaging in misconduct in the investigation and prosecution of criminal cases.

While crime continues to escalate and officials persist in suppressing crime statistics, the gloom of rampant social and economic hardship are overtaking Bahamian communities and strangling the hopes and aspirations of law abiding citizens.  These communities are becoming incubators for infectious criminal mentality and a social decadence that touches every strata of Bahamian society.  The more people know about the crime problem, as it exists in The Bahamas, the more intelligently they can approach the question of solution.  Holding back the crime statistics the way it is practiced now runs counter to this idea and is a tremendous disservice to the public who, in the end, are victimized by the epidemic.

“Varnished Brass”, a book by John Gregory Dunne has these opening lines: “What most people do not understand about policemen is that they are bureaucrats and, no matter how dedicated, all but the most exceptional adhere to that most fundamental commandment of any bureaucracy – “protect your backs”.

There are, however, fundamental facts about police work that most people do not understand and seem to forget.  One of these facts is that in our class divided society, policemen like all workers are exploited.  They are also used as instruments of coercion and enforcement by the ruling class.  We know that the ruling class in societies like our own consists of the monies interests for whose benefits the laws are passed.  Because of their special role, the police are usually the object of the anger and the frustration of the people,  when the real oppressors are the members of the ruling class who make the laws and in effect give the orders.  Given what has been said, when things go sour for the rulers as we are now witnessing, the policemen are the first to be sacrificed and thrown to the wolves.  It is because of occupational hazards like these that policemen even more than other “bureaucrats”, adhere to the bureaucrat’s commandment – “protect your back”

It is also true that because of the nature of his work, we tend to think that the policeman is different from other workers.  He is not.  Conditions in society, which affect other workers, also affect the policeman.  He has a wife who goes to the food store and must decide what will be cut from the shopping list because her budget is too small.  He has a child with promise attending a government school, but he knows that his dreams for his child and the profession that he has in mind for it may not materialize, unless he can get him or her into St. John’s College, Queen’s College, or similar schools.  It is to the private schools that senior police officers and the other privileged members of society send their children, and average workers are killing themselves trying to send their children to such schools.  It should be obvious by now that the average policeman faces the same obstacles that stem form class and privilege as his fellow workers.

The typical rank and file policeman is tired of paying rent, but even with their combined salaries, his wife and himself still have difficulty saving the down payment for a home of their own.  He like the average worker also has a car, which it seems is always in need of expensive repairs, but he has to scrap the money, for the car is absolutely essential for family transportation.  The policeman or policewoman like every other worker must also contend with the emergencies which make demands onto heir inadequate salary, so he or she is denied luxuries and has to scuffle just to meet medical and dental bills.

What makes the policemen’s plight even worse, is that in neocolonial countries such as The Bahamas, they work under an archaic and repressive colonial system that gives a minimum of expression to the aspirations of the rank and file.  In some cases, it is very dehumanizing.  Most policemen despite all this talk about a ‘new police force’ and devolution are concerned, that the colonial masters have not left.  The same rigid, hierarchical system, which our former English masters, established in the colony to keep the native policeman in his place, still exists.

In The Bahamas, rank and file policeman constantly complain of favoritism and victimization in the department but have few avenues for redress.  Many would leave the force immediately, if they were not trapped by a contract and if there were other jobs available.

Finally, it is true that most policemen are honest and try to do the best job they can.  However, with the recent charges of brutality as dishonesty, it is easy to think otherwise.

 

Charles Fawkes is President of the National Consumer Association, Consumer columnist for the Nassau Guardian and organizer for the Commonwealth Group of Unions, Editor of the Headline News, The Consumerguard and The Worker’s Vanguard.

From Landholders to Landless Bahamians in The Bahamas

Bahamian workers need to be critically concerned about our land resources in The Bahamas, and how they are used in relation to national development

Transforming Landholders Into Landless Bahamians

By Charles Fawkes

Nassau, The Bahamas

19/03/2004

At this stage of our National development, Bahamian workers need to be critically concerned about our land resources and how they are used in relation to national development.  First, we need to be overly concerned about the use of the Quieting of Titles Act as a method of raping poor Bahamians of land they have had access to for centuries.

And secondly, there needs to be a critical examination of the extension of the Stafford Sands model of economic development which allows for the building of massive high rise hotels on each of our family islands coupled with a casino as instruments of development.  All successive governments to date including the current one have used this model of development, instead of being creative in the areas of manufacturing, technology, agriculture and the development of our marine resources.

Workers must shudder when they think about the gleefulness of Prime Minister Perry Christie’s approach of signing the countless Heads of Agreement that signs away so many acres of land when the ink quickly dries on these agreements.

This government is prepared to sign away 870 acres of land in Rum Cay, and additional acreage in Crab Cay.  In Bimini, there is the Bimini Bay development and the Bimini Bay Game Fighting Club by a Malaysian company.

In Abaco there is the Winding Bay development in Cherokee Sound and Island Fresh Dairy Ltd.  In the Berry Islands there is the Prestine Resort, Chub Cay and Whale Cay development.  In Cat Island there are several give aways of large acreage including the Hawk’s Nest and Orange Creek development.

In Eleuthera in the advance planning stages are two developments at Salsa Beach, plus at Half Sound, Winding Bay and Hatchet Bay.  All of these the current administration could sign away at the “ bat of an eye”.  In West Grand Bahama $2,150 acres of the old Sammons Bay are being considered and the beat goes on and on.

When our politicians announce these projects they tell us only about the thousands of jobs, but not about the transfer of land from Bahamian hands to foreign land grabbers and speculators.  Indeed, with these transfers we are transforming The Bahamas, but more importantly transforming Bahamians from landholders to landless people.

I have noted before in this column that too much of our land is already in foreign hands.  For example, the company of the late E.P. Taylor owns one tenth of New Providence, which he obtained under the UBP and has retained under the PLP.

The gamblers and the developers own Paradise Island, The Grand Bahama Port Authority controls 230 miles of Grand Bahama that has culminated in Freeport seeming like a foreign city.  There is an American company called Columbus Landing, which reportedly controls 75% on the land on San Salvador.

It appears that a great many of the Berry Islands are foreign owned and the same is true of the Exuma Cays.  The parties of the PLP and FNM/UBP have caused the best beaches and the best lands of the country to be in non-Bahamian hands with the result that most Bahamians will never own a piece of this good earth.

Additionally, all true Bahamian patriots are appalled by the provision of the Investment Incentive Bill (IIB) for its objectives are to promote the development of the Bahamas by granting the developers the right to control large acres of land, to levy duties and grant licenses.  In fact, the concessions granted to developers under this bill virtually set up a state within a state.

The end result of these two pieces of legislation is the same: Bahamians will be robbed of their land.  On one hand the IIB will result in Bahamian settlement being hemmed in or squeezed out by some foreign or local behemoth.  And on the other hand, under the Quieting of Titles Act (QTA) Bahamians have been robbed by the local land grabbers.  In fact if I were Attorney General, Alfred Sears, I would rename these two pieces of legislation The Land Grabbers Act.  The Quieting of Titles Act however, has cancerous effects on the land situation in the Bahamas.

This act, which came into effect on November 1, 1959, has turned out to be a nightmare –virtual scourge on the poor Bahamian worker who has been fortunate enough to become legally involved with it.  For the local lawyers, however, this Act has been a boon – a bonanza for this already bloated profession.  For the unscrupulous land grabber, it has produced the perfect situation for him to ply is trade and swindle the poor landowner.

This present lawyer dominated government is aware of the hardships the Act has inflicted on the Bahamian masses over the years, and the reasons why they have not attempted to rectify this unnecessary and unjust hardship are very strongly suspect.  This unfortunate piece of legislation was introduced by the UBP exploiters and presented in the House of Assembly by Mr. Godfrey T. Kelly.  The sated reason given for the Bill at that time was to enable persons who own generation property and other land, and who because historical reasons could not produce marketable title to be able to do so.  Prior to this informal arrangements regarding land transactions were common.

The hardship caused by the inability to produce good title was most severely felt in the Family Islands, but is was also thought by the ruling class at that time that the impreciseness as to land ownership hampers economic development.

Although a few workers benefited form this Act it is primarily used up this day, by the ruling class and other criminals to rob the poor unsophisticated and unsuspecting owner of his land, and the Pindling, Ingraham and Christie governments has made no effort to correct the practice.

This Act allows fake landowners to petition to the courts for Certificates of Title accomplished by fraudulent affidavits and sworn statements.  The petitioners on completion of the legal exercise are then granted land rightfully owned by others without the true owners knowing it, sometimes for years.

The court as institutions of the ruling class, are notorious for handing down decisions in land disputes in favor of the ruling class exploitators, the Higgs and Forbes land cases are glaring examples of this.

Legal transactions involving the Quieting Titles Act are lucrative and the Act is one of the bread and butter tools of the legal profession so to expect the average lawyers to protect the interest of the masses in this is like leaving the wolf to protect the sheep.

All the exploitaters like the owners of New Providence Development, the Grand Bahama Port Authority and Paradise Island etc. have benefited directly or indirectly from using this law.  The Port Authority was so ruthless in its land grabbing that adjacent landowners in Grand Bahama had to take up the shotgun to protect their property.

The worker facing a battery of high-powered lawyers, exorbitant legal fees and legal institutions are in a hopeless no-win situation.  In such confrontation the ruling class often sometimes winds up winning by default.  As I have attempted to demonstrate so often in these columns the average Bahamian in this country will never get justice, will never have institutions functioning in their interest, until they the workers control the country government in The Bahamas.  The land fraud phenomenon shows how well the institution functions to protect the monied class and those who are in power.

Charles Fawkes is President of the National Consumer Association, editor of the Headline News, The ConusumerGuard and the Workers Vanguard, Consumer columnist for the Nassau Guardian.