Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

While we all want to live in a society free of crime, we all recognize that this goal is easier said than done!

Since remediating and mitigating crime is both an “Art” and a “Science”, we have to rely on professionals and Subject Matter Experts (SME) – Police – to do this job. And when these SME’s succeed in their “art and science”, we hardly notice; but when they fail we cannot ignore the failures, as we are all impacted.

Right now, there is no way to ignore what is going on in the Caribbean member-state of the Bahamas; they have an alarming crime problem, one that has the attention of local, regional and international stakeholders. According to the below news article, these numbers highlight the problem:

In 2010, there were 94 murders recorded in the country, a record at the time. The next year there were 127 murders and in 2012 there were 111. There were 120 murders in 2013, 123 in 2014 and a record 149 last year [2015].

For a country of 320,000 people, these numbers are alarmingly high. (This blogger is Bahamas-bred).

The book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that to elevate Caribbean society there must be a focus on elevating the region’s economic, security and governing engines. While the book primarily targets economic empowerments (jobs, investments, education, entrepreneurship, etc.), it posits that security concerns must be front-and-center along with these economic efforts.

The book directly relates (Page 23) that with the emergence of new economic drivers that “bad actors” will also emerge thereafter to exploit the opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent. This is a historical fact, and is bound to be repeated again and again. The following news article and related VIDEO convey this point:

Title: ‘Change leaders in crime fight’
Source: BahamasLocal.com – Local Online News Portal; retrieved January 6, 2016 from:
http://www.bahamaslocal.com/newsitem/142707/Change_leaders_in_crime_fight.html

January 04, 2016 – Former Deputy Commissioner of Police Quinn McCartney is renewing his call for a change in leadership in the crime fight following the setting of a new murder record in The Bahamas in 2015, and several serious crimes already recorded for 2016, including two murders and multiple shootings. While McCartney did not identify anyone in his post, his comments are widely viewed as a critique of Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade.

“I promised not to say too much this year, but looks like 2016 is starting off much like 2015 ended, and therefore I feel compelled to say something brief right now,” McCartney wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday night.

“Obviously what we are doing right now is not working. There is, in my humble opinion, a need for drastic changes to be made. Perhaps we should take our cues from sports teams. I am not a sports fanatic, but I do know that when a team continues to lose, sooner or later there is a leadership change [and] the manager/coach is fired.

“Most of the team members stay but new leadership is brought in to hopefully chart a new course for what should be a talented team. With six successive years of unprecedented records, are we at the point where we need to honestly look at a change of the leadership for the team?”

McCartney’s call for new leadership comes exactly six years after Greenslade assumed command of the Royal Bahamas Police Force and one year after he, McCartney, retired as deputy.

In 2010, there were 94 murders recorded in the country, a record at the time. The next year there were 127 murders and in 2012 there were 111. There were 120 murders in 2013, 123 in 2014 and a record 149 last year.

McCartney’s post attracted widespread attention and in response to a comment under his post, McCartney promised to expand on his thoughts later in the week.

“We can only be manipulated to the extent that we allow persons to manipulate us,” he wrote. “The political directorate can only get us to do what they want if we allow them to. We need to de-politicize our institutions or at least the perception that they are politicized. Unfortunately we have allowed them in when it has been expedient for our professional success or advancement. We are to blame.”

Fresh off a record-setting year, a man was shot and killed outside a bar at the intersection of Kemp Road and Wulff Road early Saturday morning, police said. Hours later, Michael Deangelo Bethel, a well-known businessman, was shot and killed after he was ambushed at the traffic light near Montagu Beach early Sunday morning. His wife and two others were injured in the shooting, police said.

This is not first time McCartney has been critical of the leadership in the crime fight. Last November, he said if those charged with addressing the problem are failing to do their jobs, they should be removed.

McCartney left the force after more than 30 years of service. His relationship with the commissioner was reportedly strained in the time leading to his exit. McCartney holds a first degree in chemistry and a master’s degree in forensics from the University of Scotland. He has had extensive professional training since then.

As deputy commissioner, he was responsible for complaints and discipline, fire services and the force’s inspection and review branch, which was reportedly dismantled in 2012.

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VIDEO – MAN STABBED AND KILLED IN YELLOW ELDER – https://youtu.be/pRYNzSaGzSw

Published on Dec 29, 2015 – NB12 DECEMBER 29TH, NEWSCAST.
Pardon the opening Advertisement/Commercial.

The foregoing news resources relate the dire status quo in the Bahamas. A similar review in other Caribbean member-states shows similar challenges. So crime is a regional problem. The Go Lean book therefore presents a regional solution. The book features details of mitigations designed from world-class best-practices to remediate crime in the Caribbean region. All of which the current regimes of the 30 separate member-states would be unable to pursue on their own. As the commentator relates in the foregoing article, there is a need for a new regime, as the current structures are failing. The Go Lean book therefore relates “the new Sheriff in Town” – a regional one – with these strategies:

• Caribbean Police (CariPol)
• Regional Security Intelligence Bureau
• Enhanced Witness Protection Solutions
• Regionally-regulated Private/Commercial First Responders
• Youth Crime Awareness and Prevention
• Prison Industrial Complex

This last entry – Prison Industrial Complex – is the focus of this commentary. There is much to learn from the “art and science” of penology and criminology in implementing change in the new Caribbean.

The Go Lean book posits that the Caribbean is in dire straits – society-wise and crime-wise – due fundamentally to one factor: societal abandonment. Evidence is provided when the best-of-the-best flees a community, the consequence is more-and-more turmoil among the remnant.

Consider this: What happens in prisons where/when felons and “bad actors” are all warehoused together?

The fields of penology and criminology are all consistent in their conclusions: Criminals, felons and “bad actors” all learn to become better criminals, felons and “bad actors” in prison. This is why recidivism – the propensity to return to the bad practice – is so high.

Per Psychiatry: Recidivism = the chronic tendency toward repetition of criminal or antisocial behavior patterns.

This commentary – in support of the book Go Lean…Caribbean – has previously established that the societal abandonment rate among the educated classes of the Caribbean average 70%, with some communities experiencing even higher rates; (Jamaica at 85% and Guyana at 89%). This consideration details the “push and pull” reasons why Caribbean citizens flee.

The Go Lean book and this entire movement hereby asserts that the problem of crime in the Bahamas – as related in the foregoing news article, though not exclusive there – is a vicious cycle of cause-and effect that is common and tragic throughout the entire Caribbean region. Imagine this cycle:

• The Caribbean Remnant – lower skilled and more prone to violence – learn more effective lawlessness
• Innocent people leave the Caribbean region for refuge abroad
• The Caribbean Remnant – lower skilled and more prone to violence – learn more effective lawlessness
• Innocent people leave the Caribbean region for refuge abroad
• … pattern continues …

This presumed pattern is based on the premise that foreign governments disallow immigrants with criminal records. So these ones – bad actors – are comprised in the remnant population left behind in the Caribbean. This means that every iteration of the above pattern changes the statistics of felons/non-felons in society; more and more felons, percentage-wise.

So then, what hope is there for the future?

“Do what you’ve always done, get what you’ve always got” – Old Adage.

The declaration of the policing SME in the foregoing article is to “change the leadership in the crime fight”. (Though the quoted article appears to be more political in its indictment).

This is the quest of the Go Lean movement, to change the leadership, stewardship and oversight of the Caribbean eco-system. (This commentary makes no judgments on the actual Commissioner of Police of the Royal Bahamas Police Force; this public servant seems to be an honorable man with only good intentions for his homeland). The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the region’s economic, security and governing engines beyond their status quo. The roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

• Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to provide public safety and protect the resultant economic engines from economic crimes and cross-border threats.
• Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The goal of this roadmap is to confederate all of the Caribbean – all 30 member-states – under a unified entity to provide these societal solutions for the region. But ‘Security’ for the Caribbean has a different meaning than for many of the countries the Caribbean Diaspora flee to, like North America and Europe. The CU security goal is for public safety! The goal of the CU is set to optimize Caribbean society through economic empowerment, and also the security dynamics of the region, since these are inextricably linked to this same endeavor.

The end result of the successful execution of the Go Lean/CU roadmap is improvement of Caribbean society, minimizing the “push-pull” factors that led to more emigration, and incentivizing the return of many Diaspora that have left over the years and decades.

The cause-and-effect of failing economics lead to increasing criminality. The cause-and-effect of improved economics lead to lesser criminal activities. The motivation of this Go Lean/CU roadmap is the basic economic principle, described in the Go Lean book (Page 21), that “Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives”. So the advanced field of economics hereby posits that Economic Systems, more so than political systems influence people’s choices and incentives. So the Go Lean/CU seeks to optimize the region’s economic systems to better deliver on the prime directives of the Go Lean roadmap.

This roadmap fully envisions the integration of shepherding – leadership – for the Caribbean region’s economic and security initiatives under the same governance: The Caribbean Union Trade Federation. This point is pronounced early in the Go Lean book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) that claims:

x.   Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices … to assuage continuous threats against public safety.

xi.   Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii.  Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes, including piracy and other forms of terrorism, can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

The Caribbean appointing “new guards”, or a security  apparatus to ensure justice and public safety will include many strategies, tactics and implementations deemed “best-practice” over the years, including an advanced Intelligence Gathering & Analysis effort to mitigate and remediate crime in the region, and also to optimize the “art and science” of crime, including prison reform; (see Page 211 of the Go Lean book). This represents “top-down” and “bottom up” optimization of the security process to better protect the homeland. This comprehensive Homeland Security focus is “Step One, Day One” in the Go Lean roadmap, covering the approach for adequate funding, accountability and control. The Go Lean book details the series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to provide increased public safety & security in the Caribbean region:

Other subjects related to crime and security empowerments for the region have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentaries, as sampled here:

The vision of the Go Lean roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. This means measurable reduction (mitigation and remediation) of crime in the region.

The premise is that “bad actors” will always emerge, from internal and external origins. We must be prepared and on-guard to defend our homeland against all threats, foreign and domestic, including crime. Plus, we must accomplish this goal with maximum transparency, accountability, and commitment to due-process and the rule-of-law.

An additional mission is to lower the “push” factors (from “push-and-pull” reference) so that our citizens are not led to flee their homeland for foreign (North American and European) shores. Among the many reasons people emigrate, is victimization or fear of crime. There is “good, bad and ugly” in every society. We must not allow all our “good” citizens to leave and the only remaining – the remnant – would be the “bad and the ugly”.

So all stakeholders in the Caribbean – people and institutions – are urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap for the elevation of the Caribbean’s societal engine: economy, security and governance. The roadmap calls for the heavy-lifting so as to impact the Greater Good.   🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!