The burden on the police force is clear. Police officers have to be educated, trained and equipped to track down, and bring to justice all lawbreakers.
In this regard, we take note that complaints against a number of police officers are coming in at an alarming rate. Some are being accused of being brutal. In other instances, there are even darker insinuations. In one extreme case, the rumoured word on the streets in Grand Bahama concerns police violence leading to the death of a young man.
While we do not wish to dignify some of the more lurid allegations, the persistence of the claims of police abuse warrants urgent attention from the Police Commissioner. In addition, the Minister of National Security must also take note of what people are saying, and what some police officers might be doing. We too need to know the facts.
The attentive public is watching and waiting to see what comes of any number of official complaints, alleging abuse on the part of a number of police officers. It goes without saying that the public wants to believe that the Police Force is manned by officers, who know what it means to defend and protect. That public also wants to know that those who enforce the law, are not themselves lawbreakers.
In today’s Bahamas, crime and the fear it evokes are high on the list of concerns Bahamians have. On any given day, there are reports of occasions where people are hurt, or property stolen. At a more insidious level, there are any number of disturbing reports about the extent to which suite-level crimes wreak social havoc, but are very quietly disposed of by their perpetrators. On the odd occasion when a high level criminal is brought before the courts, practically everyone is astounded. Almost as a reflex, there is the retort that the person does not look like a ‘criminal’.
In and of itself, this is extremely revealing. By assuming that the ‘criminal’ has a certain look, others who are deeply involved in wrongdoing, go unnoticed. As they move from one escapade to another, respect for the rule of law is diminished. This is so because many who are involved in street-level crimes are working for shadowy upper level operatives. Nowhere is this more clearly illuminated than it is in the criminal enterprises involving human cargo smuggling, the trade in guns, and the illicit drug trade. Indeed, on any day of the week, hundreds of Bahamians are caught up in these trades.
Quite evidently, some of these criminals work from their suites. As obviously, many others work at the street level. Therefore, if we are correct in our surmise that police officials are focused on street level crimes, it stands to reason that the people they would target, would be primarily street level thugs. Any review of the typical police blotter would convincingly convey the impression that young black males are the types who commit most of the street level offences in The Bahamas. This is probably true.
So, it is not at all surprising that the image of the ‘criminal’ is that of a young black man, handcuffed and in leg irons. He might also be sporting a head full of matted dreadlocks. If ‘appearances maketh the man,’ he would epitomise the criminal look to the tee.
Invariably, this is the stereotype and caricature of the ‘criminal’ who is on the police watch list. This explains why there are so many instances of reports of police officers arresting people who fit their notion of what the ‘criminal’ is supposed to look like.
This penchant on the part of the police and the community to stereotype, scapegoat and stigmatise certain Bahamians on the basis of how they look, echoes and parallels similar practices in the United States. There are innumerable instances where ‘racial profiling’ has led to innumerable cases of innocent men and women being targeted, labelled criminal, sometimes charged and often convicted.
While we have no way of knowing the extent to which such practices have infected the Bahamian criminal justice system, it would be safe to assume that there are instances where police officers have based some of their assessments of criminality on how a person looks, or on the basis of where he lives. These pernicious stereotypes have been used to cast aspersion on tens of thousands of people who live in some of this nation’s heartland communities.
What is even more interesting from a sociological perspective, is that many of the people who harbour and cultivate these crude calumnies, are themselves products of the environment and culture they now decry. Many of these people are very successful criminals, working from their suites.
Editorial, The Bahama Journal
