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 C R I M E , D E L I N Q U E N C Y A N D J U S T I C E

CRIME, DELInQUENCY AND

JUSTICE

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 C R I M E , D E L I N Q U E N C Y A N D J U S T I C E

MAP OF THE CARIBBEAN

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 C R I M E , D E L I N Q U E N C Y A N D J U S T I C E

CRIME, DELInQUENCY AND

JUSTICE
A Caribbean Reader

edited by Ramesh Deosaran

Ian Randle Publishers

Kingston Miami

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 J U S T I C E

Published in Jamaica, 2007

by Ian Randle Publishers
11 Cunningham Avenue
P.O. Box 686
Kingston 6.
www.ianrandlepublishers.com

Preface, copyright selection and editorial material

© 2007, Ramesh Deosaran
All Rights Reserved. Published 2007

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Jamaica.

ISBN: 978-976-637-296-5 (pbk)

Epub Edition @ August 2013 ISBN: 978-976-637-715-1

Crime, Delinquency and Justice: A Caribbean Reader. Copyright © 2007 by Ramesh

Deosaran. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Conventions. By
payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable
right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be
reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled reverse-engineered, or stored in or
introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any
means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without
the express written permission of Ian Randle Publishers.

Cover and book design by Ian Randle Publishers

Printed in the United States of America

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Table of Contents

List of Figures / ix
List of Tables/ xi
Foreword/ xv
Preface / xvii
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations/ xxiii

PART I CARIBBEAN CRIMINOLOGY: THEORETICAL

DIRECTIONS
1. Towards a Caribbean Criminology / 3
Kenneth Pryce
2. By Your Theories You Shall Be Known: Some Reflections on Caribbean
Criminology / 19
Christopher Birkbeck
3. Towards a Caribbean Criminology: Prospects and Problems / 43
Richard R. Bennett and James P. Lynch
4. Constructing the Crime Problem through the Media: Melodrama in
Venezuela, 1950–99 / 66
Christopher Birkbeck

PART II JUVENILE DELINQUENCY AND PUBLIC POLICY:

THE CARIBBEAN EXPERIENCE
5. School Violence and Delinquency: The Dynamics of Race, Gender, Class,
Age and Parenting in the Caribbean / 89
Ramesh Deosaran
6. Thinking Violent Thoughts: Students’ Attitudes to Violence within
Secondary Schools in Trinidad and Tobago/ 133
Jerome De Lisle (Noreen Ramkhelawan, Carol Joseph, Sean Annisette, Indra Maraj,
Anna Singh, Kameel Ali, Teckler Thomas, Lyn Murray and Joy-Ann Walcott)
7. Juvenile Delinquency, Juvenile Justice and Legal Reform: A Case for an
Evidence-Based Approach / 149
Betsy Ann Lambert Peterson
8. Juvenile Delinquency in Trinidad and Tobago: Challenges for Social Policy
and Caribbean Criminology / 159
Ramesh Deosaran and Derek Chadee

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PART III DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND THE LAW IN THE

CARIBBEAN
9. Provocation: The Difficulty Encountered by the Courts and the Defence’s
Impact on ‘Battered Woman’s Syndrome’ / 199
Satnarine Sharma
10. Innovative Community Approach to Ending Domestic Violence / 224
Jo-Ann Della-Giustina

PART IV COMMUNITY POLICING, POLICING STYLES AND

USE OF FORCE IN THE CARIBBEAN
11. A Caribbean Portrait of Crime, Justice and Community Policing / 241
Ramesh Deosaran
12. Rough Justice: Political Policing and Colonial Self-Rule in Guyana / 265
Joan R. Mars
13. Policing Styles in the Commonwealth Caribbean: The Jamaican Case / 284
Anthony D. Harriott
14. Use of Force by Police in the Caribbean: Towards a Social Psychological
Analysis / 301
Ramesh Deosaran

PART V CORRECTIONS IN THE CARIBBEAN

15. Client Rehabilitation or Sanitisation of the Penal Language? Analysis of
Correctional Reforms in Jamaica / 323
Marlyn J. Jones
16. Variables Associated with Probation Outcomes in Venezuela / 348
Christopher Birkbeck
17. Prison Recidivism in Trinidad and Tobago: A Baseline Study / 368
Ian K. Ramdhanie

PART VI CRIME AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE CARIBBEAN

18. Crime and Development in the Caribbean: An Investigation of Traditional
Explanatory Models / 401
Richard R. Bennett, William P. Shields and Beth Daniels
19. Paradise Lost? Crime in the Caribbean: A Comparison of Barbados and
Jamaica / 430
John W. King
20. A Longitudinal Study of Serious Crime in the Caribbean / 441
Klaus de Albuquerque and Jerome McElroy

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PART VII THE JURY AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IN

THE CARIBBEAN

21. The Jury on Trial / 475

Ramesh Deosaran
22. Pre-Trial Publicity and Juror Prejudice: A Case Study / 497
Ramesh Deosaran
23. Ensuring Efficiency and Effectiveness in the Criminal Justice System (The
Netherlands Antilles and Aruba (NAA) and Saint Lucia) / 526
Adrian Saunders and Jacob Wit

PART VIII DRUG TRAFFICKING AND PUBLIC POLICY IN THE

CARIBBEAN
24. Conflict and Cooperation in the War on Drugs: The Caribbean Experience / 545
John W. King
25. Does Drug Enforcement Reduce Crime? An Empirical Analysis of the Drug
War in Central American and Caribbean Countries / 555
Horace A. Bartilow

PART IX TERRORISM, INSURRECTION AND POLITICAL

VIOLENCE IN THE CARIBBEAN
26. The Politics of Information and the People’s Revolutionary Government
(The 1979 coup in Grenada and the 1983 US Intervention) / 581
Ramesh Deosaran
27. The Psychology of Political and Social Conflict (The 1990 Muslimeen
Insurrection in Trinidad and Tobago) / 597
Ramesh Deosaran

PART X VICTIMISATION IN THE CARIBBEAN

28. Human Trafficking and the Dominican Republic: A Victim-Centric
Approach / 627
Janice Joseph, Zelma W. Henriques and Patrice Morris
29. Effects of Ethnicity and Nationality on Driving Attitudes and Perceived
Risk of Victimisation / 645
Michael R. Norris and Jacqueline Bergdahl
30. Perceptual Fear and Risk of Victimisation / 653
Derek Chadee and Jason Ditton

Contributors / 674
Index / 676

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list of figures

Figure 3.1 Homicide in Selected Caribbean Nations and the US, 1977–93/ 49
Figure 3.2 Assault in Selected Caribbean Nations and the US, 1977–93 / 50
Figure 3.3 Burglary in Selected Caribbean Nations and the US, 1977–93 / 51
Figure 3.4 Percentage of Violent to Property Crime in Two Nations, 1977–93 / 52
Figure 5.1 Students’ Race by Social Class Distribution (%) / 104
Figure 5.2 School Type by Race (%) / 105
Figure 5.3 School Type by Social Class (%) / 106
Figure 5.4 Parental Structure by Race (%) / 107
Figure 5.5 Parental Structure by Social Class (%) / 108
Figure 5.6 Six Categories of Violence and Delinquency by Gender (Means and
Standard Deviations) / 114
Figure 5.7 The Pentagon Model: Configuring Strategic Partnerships / 124
Figure 8.1 Ethnic Background (%) of Youths in Juvenile Homes and General
Population in Trinidad and Tobago (10–19 Years) / 180
Figure 8.2 Educational Attainment (%) of Youths in Juvenile Homes and General
Population in Trinidad and Tobago (10–19 Years) / 181
Figure 8.3 Religious Background (%) of Youths in Juvenile Homes and General
Population in Trinidad and Tobago (10–19 Years) / 182
Figure 8.4 Serious Crimes, Minor Crimes and Offences Reported in 1980, 1985,
1990, 1996 / 184
Figure 8.5 Crime Reports, Prosecutions and Convictions: Average Figures for
1987–96 (Ten Year Period) / 185
Figure 11.1 Challenges for Community Policing in the Caribbean / 250
Figure 11.2 The Way Forward for Community Policing / 254
Figure 14.1 Expected and Actual Use of Force by Police Under Varying Levels of
Direct Threat / 315
Figure 14.2 An Interactionist Perspective on Use of Force / 316
Figure 17.1 Number of Persons Convicted and Sent to Prison by Sex, 1988–99/370
Figure 17.2 Number of Persons Convicted and Sent to Prison by Age Group, 1991–98 / 371
Figure 17.3 Number of Persons Convicted and Sent to Prison / 372
Figure 17.4 Number of Persons Convicted and Sent to Prison by Crime/Offence
Committed, 1990–99/ 373
Figure 17.5 Classification of Inmates (All Prisons)/ 379
Figure 17.6 Age of Inmates (All Prisons)/ 380
Figure 17.7 Ethnicity of Inmates (All prisons)/ 381
Figure 17.8 Religion of Inmates (All Prisons)/ 382
Figure 17.9 Major Crimes/Offences Committed by Inmates (All Prisons)/ 385

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Figure 17.10 Length of Sentence of Inmates (All Prisons)/ 386

Figure 17.11 Type of Sentence Served by Inmates (All Prisons)/ 388
Figure 17.12 Sex of Inmates by Crime/Offence Committed/ 389
Figure 17.13 Types of Crimes/Offences Committed and Inmates’ Ages/ 391
Figure 18.1 Homicide Rate by Nation, 1975–95/ 408
Figure 18.2 Aggravated Assault Rate by Nation, 1975–95/ 409
Figure 18.3 Rape Rate by Nation, 1975–95/ 409
Figure 18.4 Burglary Rate by Nation, 1975–95/ 410
Figure 18.5 Larceny Rate by Nation, 1975–95/ 410
Figure 18.6 Violent to Property Crime Ratio by Nation, 1975–95/ 411
Figure 18.7 Violent Crime by Social Variables Barbados, 1975–95/ 416
Figure 18.8 Violent Crime by Social Variables Trinidad, 1975–95/ 416
Figure 18.9 Violent Crime by Social Variables Jamaica, 1975–95/ 417
Figure 18.10 Violent Crime by Economic Variables Trinidad, 1975–95/ 418
Figure 18.11 Violent Crime by Economic Variables Barbados, 1975–95/ 418
Figure 18.12 Violent Crime by Economic Variables Jamaica, 1975–95/ 419
Figure 18.13 Property Crime by Social Variables Jamaica, 1975–95/ 420
Figure 18.14 Property Crime by Social Variables Trinidad, 1975–95/ 420
Figure 18.15 Property Crime by Social Variables Barbados, 1975–95/ 421
Figure 18.16 Property Crime by Economic Variables Barbados, 1975–95/ 422
Figure 18.17 Property Crime by Economic Variables Trinidad, 1975–95/ 422
Figure 18.18 Property Crime by Economic Variables Jamaica, 1975–95/ 423
Figure 20.1 Murder Rates per 100,000 Population: 1969–73 vs. 1989–93/ 466
Figure 20.2 Robbery Rates per 100,000 Population: 1969–73 vs. 1989–93/ 467
Figure 20.3 Rape Rates per 100,000 Population: 1969–73 vs. 1989–93/ 468
Figure 21.1 Jurors Opinion Change During Trial/ 486
Figure 22.1 Eligible Jurors’ Perception of Bias from Pre-trial Publicity (n=779)/ 509
Figure 25.1 The Effects of Interdiction on Drug Revenues when Demand is
Elastic/ 561
Figure 25.2 The Effects of Interdiction on Drug Revenues when Demand is
Inelastic/ 561
Figure 27.1 Diffusion of Muslimeen Land Conflict Over Time/ 620

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list of tables

Table 1.1 Unemployment in the Caribbean/ 10

Table 5.1 Parental Structure by School Type (%)/ 109
Table 5.2 Correlation Matrix for Six Categories of Deviance/ 110
Table 5.3 Race and Delinquency (Means, Standard Deviations and Mean
Differences) (Tukey HSD Used)/ 111
Table 5.4 Social Class and Delinquency (Means, Standard Deviations and Mean
Differences) (Tukey HSD Used)/ 113
Table 5.5 Gender and Delinquency/ 114
Table 5.6 Student Parental Structure by Six Categories of Delinquency
(ANOVA)/ 115
Table 5.7 Age by Six Categories of Delinquency (ANOVA)/ 116
Table 5.8 School Type by Six Categories of Delinquency (ANOVA)/ 117
Table 6.1 Subscale and Total Scores on the Maudsley Violence Questionnaire
(MVQ) for Males and Females / 140
Table 6.2 Subscale and Total Scores on the Maudsley Violence Questionnaire
(MVQ) for Forms 4–6/ 140
Table 6.3 Ten Highest Scoring Machismo Questions/ 140
Table 6.4 School Type, Location, and Performance on the Maudsley Violence
Questionnaire (MVQ) / 141
Table 6.5 Mean Scores, P-values, and Effect Sizes for Subscale and Total Scores
Using Three School Classifications/ 142
Table 6.6 Rank of Students from Different Communities on Machismo and
Acceptance Scores/ 143
Table 8.1 Offences Committed by Youths in the Three Homes/ 172
Table 8.2 Parental Background of Youths in Homes/ 175
Table 13.1 Police Killings, 1977–96/ 291
Table 14.1 Complaints Received on Police Use of Force: Police–Civilian
Encounters (1997–2000)/ 311
Table 15.1 Department of Correctional Services, Jamaica, Parole Data, 1995–
2005 / 332
Table 15.2 Department of Correctional Services Jamaica, Recidivism rate, 2001–
04 / 338
Table 16.1 Variables Associated With Probation Failure (Bivariate Analysis)/ 355
Table 16.2 Logit Regression Coefficients for Personal Characteristics Compared
with Failure on Probation/ 357
Table 16.3 Logit Regression Coefficients for Criminological and Personal
Characteristics Compared with Failure on Probation/ 358
Table 18.1 Correlations of Violent Crimes by Social Economic Factors/ 413

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Table 18.2 Correlations of Property Crimes by Social Economic Factors/ 414

Table 19.1 Socio-Demographic and Economic Profiles/ 438
Table 19.2 Summary Crime Statistics for Barbados and Jamaica (Offences per
10,000 Persons)/ 439
Table 20.1 Murder Rates for Selected Caribbean States, 1980–96/ 458
Table 20.2 Robbery Rates for Selected Caribbean States, 1980–96/ 459
Table 20.3 Rape Rates for Selected Caribbean States, 1980–96/ 460
Table 20.4 Burglary Rates for Selected Caribbean States, 1980–96/ 461
Table 20.5 Larceny Rates for Selected Caribbean States, 1980–96/ 462
Table 20.6 Selected Indicators for Barbados, 1980–96/ 463
Table 20.7 Crime Rates for Barbados, 1980–96/ 464
Table 20.8 Regression Results/ 465
Table 21.1 Jurors’ Sex and their First Impressions of the Accused/ 484
Table 21.2 Two Most Important Factors Perceived by Jurors in Deciding Verdicts
of Cases/ 487
Table 22.1 Eligible Jurors’ Perception of Pre-trial Bias and their Evaluation of
the Media’s Role/ 510
Table 24.1 Caribbean Maritime Counter-Drug Agreements/ 549
Table 25.1 Crime in Central America and the Caribbean, 1984–2000 Structural
Equation Three Stage Least Square/ 570
Table 25.2 Crime in Central America and the Caribbean, 1984–2000 Structural
Equation Three Stage Least Square/ 571
Table 29.1 Respondent Employment, Licensure and Concerns/ 648
Table 29.2 Behaviours that Respondent Always Does/ 649
Table 29.3 Conditions Under Which Respondent Feels Very Safe/ 649
Table 30.1 Ratio of Crime Reported to Police and Crimes Reported in all Daily
Newspapers in Trinidad and Tobago for the Period
May–August 2000/ 656
Table 30.2 Ratio of Crime Reported to Police and Crimes Reported in the Express
Newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago for the Period
May–August 2000/ 656
Table 30.3 Ratio of Crime Reported to Police and Crimes Reported in the
Trinidad Guardian Newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago for the Period
May–August 2000/ 657
Table 30.4 Ratio of Crime Reported to Police and Crimes Reported in the
Newsday Newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago for the Period
May–August 2000/ 657
Table 30.5 Ratio of Crime Reported to Police and Crimes Reported in all
Newspapers and in each Newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago for the
Period May–August 2000/ 658
Table 30.6 Descriptives of Media Consumption/ 659
Table 30.7 Regression of Fear of Crime / 660

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Table 30.8 Studies Comparing Subjective Risk and Subjective Fear/ 662
Table 30.9 Percentages of Each Type of Respondent at Each Wave/ 664
Table 30.10 Per cent Stability to Safety (17–20) and Fear (29–42) Questions
(Waves 1–3)/ 667
Table 30.11 Concealed Instability to Safety (17–20) and Fear (29–42) Questions
(Waves 1–3)/ 668
Table 30.12 Per cent Stability to Safety (17–20) and Fear (29–42) Questions
(Waves 1–2–3)/ 669

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foreword

Todd R. Clear, Distinguished Professor

John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

The post-Columbian history of the Caribbean is a story of struggle. For centuries

after the Europeans came, there was the struggle between native peoples and
colonisers for the bounteous fruits of these beautiful islands. There was also the
struggle for ethnic and racial coexistence. Both struggles proved tragically one-
sided, and by the time of the War for Independence in the United States, there
was not much left of what had been native life. There was, however, a large
population of slaves, former slaves, and workers dominated by a small elite of
landowners and colonialists. The struggle thus shifted toward one in which the
classes of labour fought for their social and economic equality. In most places
this meant that everyday people had to be willing to fight to break free of the
European governments that held the island as a colony. Yet even after success at
the struggle for nationhood, the quest for political rights became a struggle for
social justice. That struggle continues today.
Side-by-side with this history of political and social struggle — perhaps even
one of its driving forces — has been a longing for personal safety. Many brave
men and women were willing to sacrifice their personal safety in the short term
for the vision of a deeper and more substantial future foundation of safety for
them and their children.
This book is about crime and justice in the Caribbean. In a sense, therefore, it
is about a location on the globe, an archipelago that spans an arc from mainland
Florida to the very edge of Venezuela, forming an island bridge between North
and South America. Yet in perhaps a greater sense, this book is about an idea, that
these islands and peoples, diverse as they are in language, local history, custom,
and governance, share a common framework for understanding problems of crime
and justice. The book is an impressive series of papers by an imposing list of
scholars, delving into common themes about promoting safety and advancing
justice. We might say that this collection of studies, taken as a set, demonstrates
the usefulness of an idea of Caribbean Criminology.
The papers ably maintain the historical theme of “struggle” to which I have
referred, most of them without ever using the word directly. Sometimes the struggle
is to find a way to protect vulnerable populations such as children. Sometimes
the struggle is to find a way to promote justice in the context of difficult

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circumstances. Sometimes, the struggle is to find a way to translate research results

achieved in other settings to the Caribbean. Always, there is this sense of energy,
effort and fidelity to the ideal of a Caribbean Criminology.
There could not be a better time for the arrival of this book. Criminology in
the Caribbean has now reached a new plateau of vibrancy, with local projects in
Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and an active research programme that is
establishing a science of crime prevention in the region. Their annual meeting is
widely attended by people not only from the Caribbean but by scholars from
Europe and the Americas, as well. At the annual meetings of the American Society
of Criminology, a growing Caribbean Criminology group meets each year to share
news of their research and action agendas. A regular exchange of advanced students
now flows between the Caribbean and the US. The time is ripe for a new expansion
of theory and action about criminology in the Caribbean. This book is a signal of
the readiness for a new stage in the struggle for social peace and social justice.

September, 2006

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preface

Ramesh Deosaran

The state of crime, delinquency and justice across the Caribbean has become
increasingly problematic in the last 20 years. Among the major reasons are
ineffective policing and judicial institutions, weak law enforcement, crimes and
violence driven by drug trafficking, technologically-driven crimes, poor
policymaking, lack of relevant research and analysis, low-control homes and
families, fragmented, uncivil communities, value conflict, socioeconomic
disparities, and for youths especially, an environment clouded by visions of hate,
conflict and violence.
Governments in the Caribbean, almost all now independent for 40 or so years,
are now in a tailspin. The widening option they now choose for rescue is to hire
police and security teams mainly from the United Kingdom and the United States.
Part of the irony in the current outsourcing of national security by Caribbean
governments is linked to the fact that during the negotiations with the British
government for political independence these governments, especially the Trinidad
and Tobago one, insisted on having executive control over the police service.
What all this essentially means is that the region was not well prepared for this
‘crime crisis.’ In fact, governments did respond, sporadically and briskly, but
mainly with short-term, quickened law enforcement measures, leaving behind
most of the fundamental reasons why crime, delinquency and violence have
occurred and why they will reoccur, and this at great cost, financially, socially
and psychologically. Public policy fell far short of the challenges.
What this Caribbean Reader seeks to do for the region is to create an opportunity
for reflection, a platform for further research and analysis, and a bridge to
policymakers. There are still some gaps we hope to fill soon in another publication.
Among these are white-collar crime, crime and the media, cyber-crime, deportees,
environmental crime and feminism and crime. The 30 papers in this Reader have
been selected from several sources, many of them from the fourth International
Conference on Crime and Justice in the Caribbean sponsored by the Centre for
Criminology and Criminal Justice at the St Augustine Campus, The University of
the West Indies, Trinidad. Some papers have been taken from the Caribbean Journal
of Criminology and Social Psychology. A few have been specially prepared for this
Reader.
From the search for indigenous explanations and solutions in the early papers
to some hard data in the later papers, the Reader goes as far back as l976 with the
late Ken Pryce paper on the outlines of what I will call ‘rebellious criminology.’

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That is, passionately pointing to the relationship between the ‘social class struggle
and crime.’ This theme is handled empirically, to some extent, in the more recent
paper on school violence and delinquency and which throws a damper on the
social class-delinquency connection. The ideological dissonance created should
inspire a more refined conceptualisation of the social class-delinquency-crime
hypothesis in the Caribbean. In fact, the three other papers in Part One of this
Reader, two by Christopher Birkbeck and one by Richard R. Bennett and James P.
Lynch, skilfully attract us towards putting on the agenda the prospects for a
‘Caribbean Criminology.’
There is a great and obvious danger in a region having its youth population
intensely engaged in violence and delinquency, especially at school. It foretells a
grim future. The four papers in Part Two on Delinquency and Public Policy bring
some clarity to the youth violence and delinquency problem in the Caribbean.
My own paper begins with the traditional search for delinquency in the
controversial realm of social structure and demography. Race, age and family
structure, as the results show, do connect to school violence and delinquency,
but with social class, not so much. The connection between social structure and
the type of school a young person attends breeds social inequity. It is a painful
connection requiring urgent public policy attention.
Jerome De Lisle and his nine colleagues point to student attitudes as
dispositional factors towards violence. Their suggestions for violence-reduction
programmes are noteworthy. Peterson’s paper does a crisp review of juvenile
legislation and the kind of reforms needed to heal the several breaches which
now prevent more effective care for offending juveniles. We strongly support her
call for policies based on research and evidence, not on opinions and expediency.
The paper by Deosaran and Chadee shows how girls and boys from weak social
and academic backgrounds fill our juvenile homes.
Part Three really breaks new ground with two papers stretching from the role
of provocation as a legal defence in domestic violence by Trinidad and Tobago’s
Chief Justice Satnarine Sharma to a proposal to ‘end domestic violence’ by Della-
Giustina.
This latter paper gives us some useful insights towards reforming domestic
violence reduction programmes in the Caribbean. Sharma’s paper is particularly
useful in providing us with the agony which a judge likely endures in trials where
the allegation of violence clashes with the defence of justification, in this case,
provocation. This line of defence is increasingly being used in Caribbean
jurisdictions and so the Chief Justice’s contribution here is extremely timely and
useful for us.
Ineffective policing, police indiscipline and corruption, and weak law
enforcement have all unfortunately become part of the saddening drawback in
the ‘fight against crime’ in the Caribbean. Crime and criminals are in themselves
the problem, but when your crime-fighting agencies become part of the crime
problem, the public suffering is doubled, that is, double victimisation for the

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public. Caribbean governments, some more than others, have been pressed by
their respective populations to treat more seriously with the problem, a pressure
which no doubt has contributed to their willingness to bring in ‘foreign police
officers’ at very great cost. This is particularly so with Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad,
St. Kitts, St. Lucia to Guyana. The four papers in Part Four therefore contribute to
an understanding of the ‘police problem’ in the Caribbean and point the way
towards reforms and the evolution of an effective, accountable police culture in
the Caribbean.
The first paper in Part Four (Deosaran) examines community policing not so
much as ‘an alternative’ but more so as an embracing form of policing, with law
enforcement always remaining as a strategic, vitally necessary component. Joan
R. Mars and Anthony D. Harriott spread the net to include Guyanese and Jamaican
policing respectively. Mars examines the phenomena of police force in Guyana,
reminding us how very subversive such practice could become to an entire police
service which depends so much on information from a trusting citizenry. This is
a lesson echoed by the very first paper in this section which all Caribbean
governments and their respective police services should now take on board with
the utmost urgency. The tradition of ‘voluntariness’ and community service in
the Jamaican constabulary is discussed by Harriott but only to remind us how far
away from such early public respect Caribbean policing has now become, especially
with rising allegations of ‘police brutality.’ Given repeated public complaints in
recent times over the use of police force, the paper on “Use of Force by Police in
the Caribbean,” should suggest some directions for both research and public policy.
In Part Five, Marlyn Jones in a rather detailed manner exposes the stark
differences between what ‘prison officials’ tell us about prison conditions,
rehabilitation programmes, etc., and what the prisoners themselves tell us. Why
are the two groups, officials and prisoners, so far apart in their discourse? The
answer is certainly not confined to Jamaica but to all other Caribbean states,
some of which are now gradually experiencing more and more prisoner revolts of
one kind or another. It seems only a matter of time for things to get worse. This
Reader can be used to sound the required warnings for urgent and effective public
policy reforms much beyond what Jones called ‘the sanitisation of the penal
language.’ Through Christopher Birkbeck’s paper, Venezuela joins the Reader with
an analysis of the probation process in that country. Ian K. Ramdhanie’s paper
tells a very useful story of prisoner demography and social structure. In showing
a prisoner recidivism rate of almost 60 per cent in Trinidad and Tobago, the data
exposes the prison population as largely poor, of African descent, male and rather
young. The fact that so many offences are drug- and robbery-related helps explain
the nature and implications of crime in the Caribbean. That so many are in
crowded prisons for a few months and for relatively minor crimes should stimulate
reforms in both sentencing procedures and penal practices.
Part Six opens with a paper on crime and development where the traditional
explanatory model is seriously questioned, especially for application in the

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Caribbean. Using three Caribbean states — Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and
Jamaica — Bennett, Shields and Daniels argue that the relationships between
developmental indicators and crime are not linear but have much more variability
especially when linked to specific crimes in the Caribbean. In fact, recent data
shows that the relationship between unemployment and serious crime, especially
murders and kidnappings, in Trinidad and Tobago is largely an inverse one; that
is, as unemployment goes down (from 18 to 8 per cent) the crime rate goes up.
And as GDP increases, serious crimes also increase. When such results are combined
with the fluctuating social class-crime relationships found in another paper in
this Reader, we see a clear and necessary duty for Caribbean scholars to re-examine
quite carefully the traditional research paradigms in criminology before applying
them on Caribbean soil. This is especially so for variables such as social class,
gender and ethnicity.
John King’s paper on ‘Paradise Lost’ fits the current mood in the Caribbean.
With crime, delinquency and the justice system, there is a state of gloom,
moderated only by patriotic hopes for a better tomorrow and wiser governments.
In comparing Barbados and Jamaica, King instructs us as to how much such tourist-
dependent countries can lose by failing to reduce their respective levels of crime
and incivility. Paradise will be lost to the criminals. Based on data from nine
Caribbean states, Albuquerque and McElroy’s paper inserts a very helpful
methodology, the longitudinal technique, to examine crime trends. It is worse
than it looks, they assert, and the future does not look quite bright if urgent
policy action is not taken. It is very instructive to note that in almost all papers,
the appeal for more thoughtful, data-driven public policies in the area of crime
and justice keeps being repeated.
Trial by jury is a critical pervasive judicial institution across the Commonwealth
Caribbean but very rarely subjected to scientific inquiry here. The major reasons
are jury secrecy and legal prohibitions. But at the same time, too many miscarriages
of justice and jury mistakes have been reaching public attention, many of such
concerns emanating from judges themselves. It has always been an intriguing
spectacle to see how the legal and judicial system sometimes protects itself from
scrutiny by putting up fences around its suspect practices. The jury system needs
a serious review in the Caribbean but like in its motherland itself, England, it
remains shrouded with so much tradition and myth that public opinion will
likely find any drastic change hard to bear. Two of the three papers in Part Seven
focuses on the jury. In the first paper, the author illustrates several weaknesses in
trial by jury, some procedural, some institutional. The second paper links public
opinion with jury behaviour in a widely publicised and very high-controversial
manslaughter trial where a senior police officer of African descent was alleged to
have killed a young man of East Indian descent. The data presented puts not only
the jury on trial but implicitly suggests that the jury itself may be guilty of injustices
and vulnerable to courtroom manipulations. But who will bell the cat? These two
papers provide a jumpstart for public policy review. The third paper deals with a

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comparison between two criminal justice systems (British and Dutch) by Caribbean
Court of Justice judges, Adrian Saunders and Jacob Wit. The time has certainly
come for us in the Caribbean to know more about the criminal justice systems of
other places and especially if they are working well in areas where we are weak.
Justices Saunders and Wit do us such a service, especially when we consider the
role of the jury under the British judicial system.
Part Eight brings us to the drug trade and public policy. First, King examines
the extent to which there could be cooperation between Caribbean states and
the United States particularly, especially when faced with such treaties as ‘the
Ship-Rider’ Agreement. Then, Horace A. Bartilow raises a very critical argument
about the extent to which current drug policies, especially by the United States in
the Caribbean and Latin America, are really worth it. His paper certainly does
not bring closure to this very important question but it does open the doors for
further examination and, hopefully, our eyes to a new way at looking at this
growing problem of drug trafficking and public policy.
Terrorism has not as yet hit the Caribbean in its more dastardly and virulent
forms such as the destruction of the World Trade Centre Towers or the train
bombings in London or Spain. But the Caribbean has had its share. We have had
two bouts of serious terrorism-type political violence. Among the conditions which
define terrorism are enforcing change through political violence and the
instigation of fear. The two papers in Part Nine remind us of these two episodes,
the first one in Grenada in l979 when the People’s Revolutionary Army staged a
coup against the government and the subsequent United States’ intervention
(also called ‘invasion’ by the antagonists) in Grenada in l983. In that paper
(Deosaran), the ‘Politics of a Caribbean Revolution’, the PRG’s justification and
the accompanying violence are reflected in the long battle between the
revolutionary government in Grenada (PRG) and the privately-owned Caribbean
media, a close ally of the United States. The second paper on the Muslimeen
insurrection in Trinidad examines how a culture of lawlessness and public policy
carelessness could unwittingly contribute, in fact, fuel, a violent insurrection
against the government. Lives were lost in Trinidad and many more in Grenada.
Both groups, Grenada’s PRG and Trinidad’s Muslimeen, have been described
as ‘terrorists’ by several sections of the Caribbean population, especially Caribbean
governments. But several other groups, especially some labour unions and
community-based organisations, saw them differently. Such distinction brings
to mind the saying that ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.’
The interesting feature for Caribbean criminology in both violent episodes is the
justification provided by the rebels themselves. In both cases, they saw themselves
as ‘crusaders for the people,’ and not as architects of violence.
The last section in this Reader, Part Ten, throws a wide perspective on
victimisation in the Caribbean. We move from Joseph, Henriques and Morris’s
paper on the victimisation wrought by human trafficking in the Dominican
Republic, then an unusual look by Norris and Bergdahl at demography and ‘road

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risks’ in Jamaica, to Chadee and Ditton’s paper on fear of crime as a form of crime
victimisation. These three papers, like many of the above ones, do point the way
towards a new look at some old problems in the Caribbean.
For university lecturers, researchers, policymakers, students, journalists and
concerned citizens, this Reader should stimulate not only fresh ways in
understanding and reducing crime, delinquency and violence in the Caribbean
but also encourage governments and policymakers to respond more thoughtfully
and urgently to the serious challenges now facing Caribbean people.
And of course, to all my professional colleagues near and far who so willingly
and dutifully supplied me with their papers for this Reader, I say thanks very
much. To my long-standing friend and well-respected colleague and criminologist,
Professor Todd Clear, I express my very warm appreciation for writing that all-
important Foreword to this historic publication for Caribbean Criminology.
Finally, I wish to express my deep appreciation to Ian Ramdhanie for the
consistently diligent and responsible manner in which he assisted me with this
compilation of papers. To Vidya Lall, for her ever-ready support and care in seeing
that this Reader is brought to successful completion, I express my deep gratitude.
I also wish to convey my appreciation to Kathy-Ann Belmar-Thomas and Toni
Hinds for their valuable administrative support. My thanks also go out to the
other members of our publication support staff, Nikita Dindial, Rainah Seepersad,
Petal Sampson and Tennille Fanovich.

August, 2006

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acronyms and abbreviations

ACCP Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police

AIDS Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
ANOVA Analysis of Variance
AP Associated Press
BOOT Build, Own, Operate, Transfer
BWS Battered Woman’s Syndrome
CANA Caribbean News Agency
CARICOM Caribbean Community
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CIB Criminal Investigations Bureau
CICAD The Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission
CID Criminal Investigation Department
CJRA Criminal Justice Reform Act
COIN Center for Integral Orientation and Investigation (Centro de
Orientación e Investigación Integral)
CONAPRO Matagalpa Division of the Union of Professional Workers
CPBA Caribbean Publishers and Broadcasters Association
CPC Caribbean Press Council
DCSJ Department of Correctional Services of Jamaica
DEA Drug Enforcement Agency
DNA Deoxyribonucleic Acid
DPP Director of Public Prosecutions
DUI Driving Under the Influence
DWB Driving While Black
ECSC Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court
ELN National Liberation Army (Spanish Acronym)
FARC Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Spanish Acronym)
FBI Federal Bureau of Investigations
GAWU Guyana Agricultural Workers Union
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GNP Gross National Product
HIV Human Immuno-deficiency Virus
IACHR Inter-American Commission of Human Rights
IAPA Inter-American Press Association
ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
ILO International Labour Organisation

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IMF International Monetary Fund

INIM Nicaraguan Women’s Institute
INSSBI Social Security Institute
INTERPOL International Criminal Police Organisation
IOM International Organisation for Migration
IPEC International Program on the Elimination of Child Labour
IT Information Technology
JCF Jamaica Constabulary Force
JDF Jamaica Defence Force
JLP Jamaican Labour Party
KMA Kingston Metropolitan Area
LACSI Law on Adjudication and Conditional Suspension of Imprisonment
LDC Lesser Developed Countries
MED Masters in Education
MLAT Mutual-Legal-Assistance-Treaty
MOE Ministry of Education
MVQ Maudsley Violence Questionnaire
NAA Netherlands Antilles and Aruba
NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement
NAR National Alliance for Reconstruction
NGOs Non Governmental Organisations
NHA National Housing Authority (now HDC – Housing Development
Corporation)
NIJ National Institute of Justice
NJM New Jewel Movement
NNP New National Party
NWICO New World Information and Communication Order
OAS Organisation of American States
OB Home for Older Boys
OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
OECS Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States
ONCD Office of National Drug Control Policy
OPF Family Orientation and Protection
PATHS Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies
PCA Police Complaints Authority
PERF Police Executive Research Foundation
PI Preliminary Inquiry
PICTS Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles
PNC People’s National Congress
PNM People’s National Movement
PNP People’s National Party
POM Privately-Owned Media

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PPP People’s Progressive Party

PRG People’s Revolutionary Government
RSS Regional Security System
SEMP Secondary Education Modernisation Programme
Servol Service Volunteer for All
SET Students Expressing Truth
SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
UF United Force
UK United Kingdom
ULF United Labour Front
UN United Nations
UNC United National Congress
UNESCO United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation
UNHCHR The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights
UNHCR The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
UNICA The Association of Caribbean Universities and Research Institutes
UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund
UPI United Press International
URP Unemployment Relief Programme
US United States
USVI US Virgin Islands
UTEP University of Texas at el Paso
UVLM United Vendors Liberation Movement
UWI University of the West Indies
VAWA Violence Against Women Act
WHO World Health Organisation
WSU Wright State University
YB Home for Young Boys
YG Home for Young Girls
YOT Youth Offending Team
YRBS Youth Risk Behaviour Survey
YTEPP Youth Training and Employment Partnership Programme

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caribbean criminology
Theoretical Directions

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One

INTRODUCTION
Towards a
The scientific study of crime and deviant
Caribbean behaviour in the Caribbean as an
Criminology1 independent field of inquiry in its own right
is long overdue. This absence in the
Kenneth Pryce
Caribbean of an intellectual tradition
concerned with systematic investigation into
the forces of law, disorder and social control
is conspicuous in view of the fact that
apparent in the Caribbean for a long time
now, have been all the anomic features of
the universally increasing crime rate, now
regarded as a world phenomenon, rather
than a problem peculiar only to more
developed metropolitan societies. As Dudley
Allen, Commissioner of the Jamaica
Department of Correctional Services has put
it:

‘Crime and the fear of crime affect the

quality of life for millions of people in the
world. In a great many countries, rich and
poor, north and south, criminality is
influencing where people live, how they
behave and what bonds of………
community and personal interdependence
they decide to establish…… the
disproportionate crime of today and the
ways in which it begins to distort the
patterns of national and community life
makes it a distinct threat to the social
structure from which it has emerged’2.

THE CONCERN WITH CRIME IN THE

CARIBBEAN
The neglect of the study of crime is
particularly hard to justify in the Third World

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context of the Caribbean where it is generally recognised that a relationship exits

between ‘modernisation’ and crime; and where, particularly in some of the
Anglophone Caribbean territories, the rapid intensification of violence, lawlessness
and ‘white collar’ corruption in the contemporary period, has brought in its wake
instability, economic ruin and mass fear and nervousness. These developments
should not be taken for granted nor condoned as the inevitable price we pay for
modernisation and development. On the contrary, there are issues that cry out
for analysis and interpretation as part and parcel of capitalist underdevelopment
and dependency in the region and should be the concern not only of the politician,
the jurist and the policymaker, but the sociologist and other social scientists as
well.
One response to the increasing problems of crime and lawlessness in the
Caribbean is the growing recognition in official circles of the need to understand
our crime problems scientifically. Evidence for this lies in the fact that in 1975 a
Caribbean Crime Conference was held at The University of the West Indies (UWI),
Mona, to discuss issues relating to the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of
Offenders and, as late as January, 1976 the Association of Caribbean Universities
and Research Institutes (UNICA) sponsored a ‘workshop’ of Caribbean professionals
and academics who met at Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, to look into
the whole business of the escalation of crime and violence in the Caribbean and
to consider the possibility of an exchange of information on the subject by the
different territories. The French, Dutch, Spanish and English-speaking countries
of the region were all represented at the workshop whose participants included
professionals from, Jamaica, Guyana, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago,
Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana, the Virgin Islands and Suriname. All
participants at the conference underscored the singular lack of material on the
historical and sociological aspects of crime in Caribbean societies and the need to
study and evaluate the problems associated with the incidents of crime from a
Caribbean perspective.

THE IDEA OF CARIBBEAN CRIMINOLOGY

In view of the many worsening problems now facing us in our streets, in our
police stations, in our courts and in our corridors of power, such moves at an
official level are more than welcome. However, this burgeoning of intellectual
curiosity into the conditions of criminality and lawlessness should not be allowed
to develop in a purely policy oriented, pragmatic ad hoc fashion, divorced from
the emerging indigenous scholarship of Caribbean intellectual now developing
and dedicated to radically uncovering the vexed problems of power, poverty and
underdevelopment that plague the Antilles. What is needed then is a Criminology
that is pan-Caribbean in scope, a Caribbean Criminology grounded in the bedrock
of conditions peculiar to the region that attempts to illuminate the nature and

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causation of crime and deviancy within a totality of our historical and

contemporary experiences.
A Caribbean Criminology will not in any way be a theoretically unique
criminology, since even in respect of the nature and types of deviance and illegality
Caribbean societies share much with other class-stratified capitalist and neo-
capitalist societies in the contemporary world. Nonetheless, a Caribbean
Criminology would need to examine the reality of crime from a critical standpoint
in the context of the region’s history of capitalist repression and exploitation,
and in terms of the Caribbean’s cultural heritage of black working class styles of
protest and modes of response to oppression, through slavery down to the present
stage of neo-colonialism. Above all, it would be Criminology viewing criminal
acts from the standpoint of local conditions and not in terms of the frames of
reference and purely bourgeois assumptions of the establishment of the local
metropolitan-oriented ruling elite.

TRADITIONAL CRIMINOLOGY VS. THE NEW CRIMINOLOGY

I would like now to suggest in a preliminary fashion the lines along which a
Caribbean Criminology could develop as a sub field of academic sociology as
well as some of the technical insights that could be explored as a foundation for
the development of such a field of study.
A theoretical foundation for a Caribbean Criminology can be found in the
perspective of the New Criminology which is now a feature of modern
criminological thought in Sociology (Taylor, Walton, Young, 1973). To explain
what the New Criminology is, it is necessary to contrast it briefly with Traditional
Criminology, its theoretical opposite.
Traditional criminology concentrates on the deviant as an individual and
seeks to correct his behaviour to bring him back in line with society as it exists.
The deviant is seen as ‘sick,’ ‘evil,’ or ‘bad,’ while the existing rules of society and
the status quo are, on the whole, taken for granted and regarded as being basically
good and sound. Because of the emphasis on ‘correcting’ the behaviour of the
individual, within the ideology of the traditional approach, institutions such as
prisons, borstals and approved schools, are regarded as ‘houses of correction’.
The entire traditional perspective then can be said to be based on the philosophy
of correctionalism. And since the emphasis is so much on the individual; there is a
strong psychiatric-medical bias and the major concern is with the psychology of
individual deviants. Among traditionalists there is also a tendency towards the
interpretation of crime and deviancy in purely quantitative and statistical terms,
because of the need to appear ‘scientific’ in the presentation of evidence.
In contrast, the point of view of the New Criminology is based on a total and
structuralist approach to the study of crime in society. Arising as a reaction to the
conservative biases in traditional criminology, the quest here is to illuminate
crime and all other forms of rule-breaking in terms of a critical and radical

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interpretation of society. The consequence of this is that critical criminologists

prefer to work with the more all-embracing perspective of Deviance, which
encompasses a wider range of deviant phenomena, including for example, suicide,
industrial sabotage, corruption, bureaucratic mismanagement, etc., in addition
to deviations from the Criminal Law which represent just one among other systems
of rules or forms of social control in society. It is also recognised that deviance
can also point to repression or injustice in society, so that groups may consciously
choose the deviant path, as a solution to the problems posed by existence in a
contradictory society — for example, Hustling (rejection of work and their resulting
search for ‘kicks’), homosexuality (the Gay Liberation Movement), Women’s
Liberation (burning bras), Black Power Movement (burning cities), students’
demonstration (drug use), Rastafarianism (racial rebellion), the Hippie solution
(rejection of the work ethic), etc. Within the new criminology approach, the
meaning of deviance is wide and it means more than just ‘crime’ narrowly defined
by the Criminal Law. In this expanded conception of deviance, deviance can also
mean to alter course, to change, to revolutionise, to diversify, to dodge, to step
aside, etc. Furthermore, whereas the ideology of conventional criminology is that
of correctionalism, the attitude of deviance theorists is one of appreciation: the
situation of the deviant should first be appreciated in its own right, preferably
through direct observation (as opposed to a purely statistical approach) before
judgement is passed on him.
The major tenet of the radical school is that crime (or the criminal) is not
treatable apart from society, for crime is as much an expression of individual false
consciousness (greed, selfishness) as it is a product of society (poverty, injustice).
We have therefore to look more closely at the existing arrangements of society or
the type of society in which criminal action is taking place. Such an approach
must necessarily involve a study of the class struggle and class interests to
determine how these affect criminal behaviour. For crime to be properly
illuminated therefore, society has to be studied structurally and theoretically,
and not in a piecemeal fashion, along legalistic and pragmatic lines, this more
fully social approach has been adopted over purely psychological approach, because
radicals believe that only by radically changing society can we ever hope to change
behaviour (i.e. criminal or deviant behaviour). Changing society here invariably
means changing capitalist society. The assumption is not that socialism would
completely abolish crime rather that in socialist society its occurrence would be
considerably reduced and the types of crime committed would be quantitatively
different. For example, in socialist Cuba where work is compulsory, crimes such
as pick-pocketing and larceny are considerably reduced, but ‘loafing’ (or shrinking
work) is regarded as a major crime (Loney 1973).
Very importantly too, the New Criminology highlights the fact that the
individual criminal or deviant is not necessarily ‘sick,’ for deviance and criminality
is a matter of social definition. Criminality and the label ‘criminal’ arise out of
conflict in society. The conflict is between powerless and politically unorganised

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persons and groups, on the one hand, and powerful, relatively organised propertied
social interests, on the other (e.g. the unemployed and weak minorities versus
business interests represented by the state). Powerful interests are in the
competition with weaker groups and express their will through the state and the
laws they enact to protect their interests.
Who wins in such conflicts are generally those on the side of those who have
the power and that means to stigmatise, to label and to successfully criminalise
behaviour as deviant.
The losers are those without power to enforce rules and so end up being the
victim of the labels and the whole criminalisation and stigmatisation process
determined by elite interests.
Criminality and deviance are not, therefore, determined by any intrinsic
qualities of the individual or of groups (e.g. blackness) but by their relative power
in the overall situation in which they interact and struggle.
It is evident from the delineation of the above two perspectives that the
macroscopic vision of the New Criminology has superior theoretical advantages
and that, as a basis for the development of a framework for the sociology of
crime, deviance and social control in the Caribbean, it is to be preferred to the
largely psychological, legalistic and positivistic orientation of the traditional
approach, for it argues for a theoretical understanding of man and criminal action
in which the meaning of crime and deviancy is depicted as arising out of the
broader context of society generally.

SOME ‘KEY ISSUES’ FOR A CARIBBEAN CRIMINOLOGY

Within this structuralist perspective on crime, a number of problems affecting
criminality in the political economy of the Caribbean societies can now be sharply
defined as ‘key issues’ or substantive areas requiring investigation and research.

1. ORIGINS OF SOCIO-LEGAL PROBLEMS IN THE CARIBBEAN

During the long years of slavery, the control of the slave population was secured
through the brutality of the Slave Code. The very plantation system itself was
like a ‘prison,’ a ‘total institution’, in which each and every slave was viewed as a
potential criminal. According to one source, under the regime of slavery:
‘There were...laws which characterized the slaves as a chattel, to be mortgaged,
sold and protected against injury like any other chattel. There were laws which
required the slave to wear particular garments which identified him. There were
laws that forbade assemblies generally and on particular occasions such as
funerals…Such laws also had the effect of preventing the slave from going to
church and being infected with the ideas of liberty and equality. There were...laws
forbidding slaves from carrying weapons and permitting the homes of slaves to
be searched. There were laws which differentiated between the types of
punishment which followed similar injuries to whites and non-whites respectively.

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These laws…tended to sharpen the distinction between black and white and to
foster the notion of race as a determinant of status in West Indian society’ (Connell
1971).
Now despite the legal abolition of race-slavery in the Caribbean, the economic
and social status of blacks in the post emancipation period remained substantially
the same (Girvan 1975) and abolition brought with it no economic transformation
— only a change in the basis of exploiting black labour. The ex-slave population
now experienced dispossession through taxation and harassment which forced
them into a new situation where they were exploited as landless and wage-earning
labourers in a colonial economy still linked to the then industrialising world of
the capitalist North Atlantic countries. And once again, the laws governing the
masses reflected the economic interests of the colonial ruling class among whom
politico-economic power remained highly concentrated. In the social economy
of exploitation thus established, racism became further institutionalised and
continued to play an important function, not only in ideologically legitimising
the politico-economic hegemony of the whites and fragmenting the labour force
in the service of capitalist accumulation, but also in stigmatising the genetic.
Within this scenario, blacks were viewed as innately criminal3 and their lower
class institutions vilified as ‘deviant’ and illegal, even though, in some instances,
as in the case of obeah and ganja use, such practices were, (and still are) ‘reinforced
by a great deal of positive ethical and religious sentiment’ (Thwaites 1971). For
instance, Lowenthal has commented with some alarm that: ‘What distinguishes
Caribbean legal systems is that those discriminated against constitute the great
majority’.3
Lowenthal further observed that:

The [West Indian] masses see formal law as an elite weapon and the police as
their natural enemies: the elite expect and get preferential treatment. When the
... offender against the law is black the police approach as rude; if he is white the
police approach, if they do at all, with trepidation and respect, and at times, even
with apology. Lower class blacks charged with an offence are assumed to be lying;
only white people do not lie.3

Viewing the law as an elite weapon, the poor in the Caribbean sometimes react
by not cooperating with the police, by seldom invoking legal processes and by
according prestige to individual members of their own working class communities
for their continuous success in circumventing the law also by mythicizing them
as “folk-heroes”.

Today, the socio-legal disabilities of the masses are also reflected in the many laws
(Public Order Acts, Labour Laws, Emergency Acts, Sedition Laws, Dangerous Drugs
Laws, etc.) designed to restrain the working class and coerce it into disobedience.
The current tendency of Caribbean governments to resort to provisions in the
law to restrain and crush popular discontent in the name of “law and order,” is

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an expansion of their failure to radically restructure their economies and improve

the lot of the broad mass of the people. This is an area of concern in the Caribbean
experience which would fall within the scope of analysis of a Caribbean sociology
of crime and social control.

Also requiring the urgent attention of criminologists is the undermining of

justice in the administratively anachronistic criminal justice system of the
territories of the region through which our ‘deviants’ and litigants pass, most of
whom are of working-class origin. The problems here include such matters as
poor accommodation in courts, unduly lengthy trials, corruption, lack of adequate
legal aid facilities for poor litigants, the high cost of legal fees, and the unspeakably
dehumanising and substandard conditions in our prisons etc.

‘MODERNISATION’ AND CRIME

The orthodox view point is that crime in developing countries is the product
of ‘social change’, the manifestation in these societies of the transition from a
traditional to a modern stage of development (Clinard and Abbott 1973). In this
view modernisation is a disruptive, transforming experience involving
urbanisation, industrialisation and depopulation of the country side, which in
turn engenders imbalances such as overcrowding, alienation and anomie in the
city. In these conditions of ‘social disorganisation’, individuals become prey to
crime, vice and illegality, because the restraining effects of traditional social bonds
have been broken. The city especially, is presumed to have a corrupting and
demoralising effect on individuals. This is a romantic view of crime and
development which obscures and mystifies the process of becoming deviant.
Against the position stated above, I would like to advance a contrary view,
that in the Third World the rising crime rate is not a product of modernisation per
se, but a symptom of a particular type of development based on exploitation and
the ‘development of under-development’ such as has been in evidence in the
capitalist societies of the Caribbean for the past quarter century (with the exception
of Cuba). Our profit centred pattern of economic development enriches the few
(through corruption and privilege) and disposes the many (through
unemployment) which in turn leads to a diversity of survival strategies based on
pimping, hustling, pushing, scrunting, prostitution, violence and wretchedness.
The table below states the level of unemployment, official and unofficial, in
a number of Caribbean territories where in recent years, the general rate of
unemployment has been around 20–50 per cent.

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TABLE 1.1
UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE CARIBBEAN4
Antigua - official (1973) 45%
Aruba - official (1971) 16%
Barbados - official (1973) 13-15%
Bermuda - unofficial (1974) 10-12%
Cayenne - official (1974) 60%
Curacao - official (1971) 20%
- official (1974) 30%
Dominica
- unofficial (1974) 50%
Dominican - official (Balaguer 1971) 33%
Republic - unofficial (1973) 45%
Grenada - unofficial (1974) 50%
Guyana - unofficial (1974) 25%
-official (1974) 18%
Jamaica
-unofficial (1974) 25-30%
Martinique - official (1970) 50%
- official (1973) 11%
Puerto Rico
- unofficial (1973) 30-40%
St. Vincent - unofficial (1973) 40%
- official (1974) 30%
Suriname
- unofficial (1974) 30%
- official (1974) 15%
Trinidad
- unofficial (1974) 20-25%

The magnitude of the problem here is easily appreciated when it is understood

that in the advanced capitalist societies, a mere seven per cent unemployment is
regarded as a state of economic crisis.
The main victims of unemployment in the Caribbean are the young, and
mostly males, that is, the major categories are unemployed, underemployed, and
overrepresented in the criminal statistics, in Jamaica for example, 42 per cent of
young people in the under 34 age groups are unemployed (Stone and Brown
1976, 113). In Trinidad and Tobago 20–25 per cent of the labour force are
unemployed and 60 per cent of them are in the 15–25 age bracket (Lowhar 1976,
8). In a piece by Naipaul he speaks of the men in the West Indies, just as ‘drifting
through their twenties,’ because of the absence of jobs and meaningful
employment. The vulnerability of the position of young people in relation to
unemployment and crime needs therefore to be carefully studied, particularly so
since the population of the Caribbean, like the population in all Third World
countries is a predominantly young one. In Trinidad and Tobago 70 per cent of
the entire population is under 35 years of age (Lowhar 1976, 8).
The essential point is that the political economy (or the material conditions)
is the primary determinant of the social reality of crime which is itself the outcome
of inequalities in the distribution of property. Statistics tend to support this

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contention. For example, in all the ‘modernising’ or industrialising territories of

the region — that is, the bigger territories, excluding Cuba — crimes against
property show the highest rates of increase, and this is true despite the
sensationalism surrounding sexual offences (e.g. Trinidad) and violence (e.g.
Jamaica). Crime figures for Guyana2 for instance, reveal that homicide increased
from 18.2 per cent of the national total of crimes reported in 1970 to 20 per cent
in 1972. However, robbery in the same period rose from 62.1 per cent to 69.8 per
cent and fraud increased from 57.3 per cent to 60.8 per cent. In Trinidad the
police jubilantly announced that the crime figure showed a reduction in serious
crimes for 19765. But interestingly enough, within the overall downward direction
of the Trinidad crime rate, property offences, particularly robbery and breaking
and entering, showed the highest rates for 1976. The 1976 figures for Tobago
show the same trend (Forrester 1976). Figures for Jamaica also show the same
pattern of higher rates for property offences6. For instance, in 1963–64 the total
cases of burglary, larceny and robbery reported in Kingston and St Andrew were
1,573,483 and 581 respectively. For instance, in 1973–74, the number of larceny
cases reported dropped to 2,868, but the number of reported cases of burglary
had increased to 3,737 and reported cases of robbery went up to 2,522. The pattern
for Puerto Rico is similar2. Between 1973 and 1974, the total Crime Index rose by
9.6 per cent. But while there was actually a decrease in the number of reported
cases of murder and forcible rape, reported cases of robbery increased by +864,
burglary rose by as much as +4,158 and larceny by as much as +3,527. It has to be
pointed out too that in general many of the other types of offences against the
person are often committed in the pursuit of property. Of course, official crime
statistics are notoriously unreliable (e.g. for every crime known to the police, no
doubt at least 100 got unreported). Yet despite their inadequacy, official crime
figures still tell a story about the class struggle that ‘the vast bulk of offences for
which working class people are imprisoned and punished… have to do with the
fact that by virtue of being working class or black, they are without property’
(Taylor, Walton, Young 1973, 35). ‘Modernisation’ in the Caribbean, because it is
geared to enriching a few and pauperising the majority merely perpetrated this
situation.

CORRUPTION
Moreover, the criminal statistics also expose the class nature of apprehension
and punishment in our criminal justice system, for even though public knowledge
that graft corruption is commonplace among certain sections of the propertied
classes, in practice it is mainly proletarian crimes that are singled out for
punishment (as evidenced by the categories in the statistics), while middle class
deviants as a rule go undetected and unpunished. And as this bias exists despite
the fact that illicit gains appropriated through fraud, embezzlement and illegal
business practices far exceed those attributable to burglaries, larceny and petty

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thefts. For instance, the Lockheed scandal7 — uncovering bribes of up to $22-4 m

(US) stretching over three countries and involving ‘super’ dignitaries of at least
eight countries, including Colombia — came at the tail end of a wider series of
disclosures in 1975 which established as a fact that in general most of the US
under-the-table-payments to accomplices abroad, go to the ‘middle level officials
and leaders of small and developing countries where corruption is a way of life’.
Colombia’s involvement in Lockheed in particular, revealed that the existence of
corporate bribery often commits poor nations to exorbitant expenditures they
do not really need: for Colombian air force generals, enticed by bribes, had falsified
their country’s defence budget and justified their expensive purchases from
Lockheed in the name of ‘national security’. Members of the bourgeois in
developing countries are frequently bribed to put a US company’s interest ahead
of the interests of their own country. Such corrupt practices by Third World
‘kleptocrats’ and other ‘robber barons,’ serve to facilitate penetration of US
imperialism in the colonial world and illustrate that the lawmakers are often
themselves the law-breakers. That such activities are tolerated and allowed to
flourish without the stigma of crime attached to them should be a matter of
utmost theoretical importance to the Caribbean criminologists, for a criminology
that sensationalises and predicts too much proletarian crimes, while ignoring
bourgeois white collar ‘rip-off’ and crookery, can have no place in a developing
society sworn against imperialism.

THE LUMPENPROLETARIAT
A further area that needs to be explored in developing a relevant criminology
is the growth of an ‘instutionalized lumpenproletariat’ in our cities due to massive
unemployment arising from capital-intensive industrialisation (as well as indirect
export of some of this problem through migration to the cities of the metropoles).
Manifestations of the growth of the lumpen stratum locally can be seen in the
fact that in the ranks of the urban dispossessed, the struggle for survival in recent
years has assumed very ferocious and violent dimensions. The most dramatic
instance of where this is happening in the Caribbean today (though not the only
one) is the urban slums of Kingston, Jamaica. Moreover, recent Caribbean history
has shown that the lumpenproletariat elements in our cities — our gangsters,
hustlers, bad johns and petty criminals — can no longer be regarded as totally
lacking in ‘political’ significance, some traditional Marxists would have it. For
nowadays they provide a crucial rank and file support for parliamentary political
parties and corrupt political leaders (e.g. Gairy’s mongoose gang) and, when armed,
are capable of wreaking havoc and destruction. In Jamaica in 1974, for instance,
‘shooting with intent’ increased by 1,900 per cent and murders went up by almost
400 per cent. Gun Murders accounted for at least 50 per cent of all murders, while
70 per cent of all murders were committed in Kingston2. In 1968, the Walter
Rodney affair triggered off looting and arson in Kingston which resulted in

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£1,000,000 damage to property and the death of three persons (Monroe 1972,
119). The urban crisis in Jamaica had become so acute that the controversial Gun
Court Act was passed in March 1974 as a ‘shock technique’ to curb gun crimes and
maintain ‘law and order’. The sections of the Jamaican community that are now
armed include affluent middle class residents who live in constant fear of reprisals
from the dispossessed and the unemployed who are also armed. Between 1965
and now, a State of Emergency has been declared twice. Bob Marley, the
international famous Reggae singer, (the superstar of the Third World) was recently
shot down by gunmen in Kingston and some of his tunes, one of which predicts
‘war,’ have been banned by a radio station in Jamaica.
The lumpenproletariat has to be seen in the light of the controversy concerning
their role in the anti-capitalist and anti-colonial struggles. Some writers, including
many Marxists still fell that lumpens are little more than parasites, betraying
elements of instability, self–enrichment and greed, who prey on the ‘crumbs’
from the total distribution of the social product. No doubt the actions of lumpens
depend on the existing political situation — for example, whether or not a viable
revolutionary organisation exists that can effectively articulate the grievances
and constructively canalise their otherwise anarchic and nihilistic energies (Stone
1973, 149) after all, the experience of Cuba, Algeria and Black Power Movement
in the USA has shown that the lumpenproletariat is not inherently anti-
revolutionary8 (Lewis 1976, Worsely 1972). Among the writers who have been
concerned with rethinking9 the role of lumpens in Third World struggles, none
has been more positive and optimistic as Fanon who has gone as far as to suggest
that the lumpenproletariat constitutes one of the most militant elements among
the urban oppressed strata.
He wrote:

It is in this mass of humanity, this people of the shanty towns, at the core of the
lumpenproletariat, that the rebellion will find its urban spearhead. For the
lumpenproletariat, that horde of starving men, uprooted from their tribe and
from their clan, constitute one of the revolutionary forces of colonialized people.
(9: 103)

METROPOLITAN THEORIES VS. A CARIBBEAN PERSPECTIVE

Finally, in developing a theory of deviance for the Caribbean, we should be
wary of the wholesale importation of the metropolitan models of explanation
based, sometimes, on outdated research conducted in the USA and Britain where
conditions are dissimilar to our own. In this regard, overseas theories of crime
and delinquency offering a purely cultural explanation are the most suspect.
Examples of these are the views on juvenile delinquency expressed by such scholars
as Walter Miller (1958), Peter Wilson (1969), Wolfgang and Ferracuiti (of ‘subculture
violence’ fame) (1967) and to a lesser extent Ulf Hannerz (1969) and Oscar Lewis

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who developed the ‘culture of poverty’ thesis (1976). The gist of this tradition of
theorisation is that lower class delinquent boys, far from being deviant in their
acts of maliciousness, vandalism, petty theft and drug use, are in fact acting in
conformity with the values of their own ‘lower class struggle’ which is a ‘long
established, distinctively patterned tradition with an integrity of its own’. In this
view, the values of delinquent boys do not necessarily oppose them to the
standards of the dominant culture; instead their behaviour is seen as normal in
terms of the milieu to which they are accustomed and in which they have been
reared, even though their behaviour conflicts with the official values of society. It
is also argued that delinquent boys are generally from female-dominated
households; therefore they are drawn to ‘street corner’ sociability which socialises
them in typical ghetto values of toughness, violence, ‘kicks’, drug use, sexual
prowess, smart talk, smart dress and excessive drinking, etc. Yet in maintaining
these ‘delinquent’ attitudes, street corner life provides opportunities for boys to
learn aspects of the male role which have been denied them by virtue of their
membership of households where men are either absent or frequent only
irregularly. Another writer, David Matza (1964) argues that delinquent boys merely
accentuates pleasure-loving attitudes of ‘kicks’ and thrilling-seeking, etc. which
are commonly held values even among the work-conscious bourgeois who however
differ in that they tend to confine their subterranean activities to special occasions
such as fetes and carnival etc., whereas delinquent boys practice them as a way of
life. They therefore suffer from ‘bad timing’ as they are impervious to the workday
rule that there is a time and place for everything. This is possible for them, Matza
points out, because juvenile delinquents justify their deviance by the use of verbal
techniques of neutralisation (‘I’m sick,’ ‘everybody uses drugs,’ ‘we weren’t hurting
anyone’), which neutralise and weaken the moral bind of the middle class ideology
on them. Such theories are obviously deficient in respect of their lack of
appreciation of the structural origins of delinquency and delinquent subcultures.
In contrast to these writers, Cohen (1955) and Cloward and Ohlin (1960)
come closer to outlining a view of delinquency which might be applicable to the
Caribbean environment, for they discuss the experience of delinquent subcultures
in terms of class situation of the working class boys, with reference to their restricted
life chances and the frustration attendant upon their inability to measure up to
the middle class aspirations, particularly in schools, which are run by middle
class teachers committed to conventional values of success and achievement. For
these writers, particularly Cloward and Ohlin, the delinquent solution is a
‘collective’ response and is only possible when lower class boys attain a
consciousness in which they blame the system for their failure rather than
themselves. These writers also tend to portray delinquent gangs as militant
opposition groups that are distinguishable by their apartness and the
distinctiveness in their way of life. Yet, however successful is the approach of
Cohen and Cloward and Ohlin in illuminating the problem of delinquency in

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the US, they are often of limited theoretical utility when applied to the Caribbean,
because the disaffection and style of protest of the Caribbean lower class youth
cannot be adequately explained without an understanding of our experience of
racism and neo-colonial poverty and the situation of the ‘sufferer’ in contemporary
Caribbean society. In the Caribbean (and Afro-America) ‘street life’ and
delinquency are the products of a system that simultaneously deny men jobs and
stigmatise them racially, thereby defining them as outsiders not only to the system
as a whole but also in relation to their own families, since they are deprived of
the means to discharge their obligations as breadwinners10. But this entire
condition originated with race-slavery and has persisted to the present era of
mass unemployment. Thus in the Caribbean the subculture of the street has not
only given rise to values (delinquency) and institutions (‘groundings,’ ‘liming’
on the block) through which men and youths inarticulately try to regain their
manhood lost in ‘shitwork’ or through unemployment11, it also generated politico-
expressional idioms such as Calypso, Reggae, pan music and the millenarian
reaction of Rastafarian and ‘dreadness’ which have been more consciously
expressive of an ideology of resistance against the imperialist power structure12
(Nettleford 1970, Monroe 1972). Delinquency in the Caribbean then, is a
phenomenon of some complexity intimately fused with politics and liberation
struggles. To adopt foreign models, in which the phenomenon is either ‘de-
racialised’ or viewed in purely cultural terms, is merely to trivialise the problem
and divorce it from its structural and historical context.

CONCLUSION
In this paper, my purpose has been to show that Criminology as an academic
discipline is an undeveloped field of study in the Caribbean scholarship and it
has been noted that this is a curious state of affairs, given the rising crime rate in
the Third World generally and the escalating problems of violence, corruption
and petty criminality in territories of the Anglophone Caribbean in particular. A
brief sketch of the radical perspective in modern criminological thought is given
and counterposed to the traditionalist viewpoint, and it suggests that the former
approach holds out greater promise for the development of a criminology of
relevance to the Caribbean that can look at crime broadly, critically and
theoretically in terms of the overall historical, social and economic framework of
the region. In stating the case for a meaning full theory of deviance suitable to
the Caribbean experience, certain key areas (though by no means the only ones)
have been singled out for special attention to indicate the possible dimensions of
the field and the scope of the scholarship required.

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REFERENCES
Albert, C. 1955. Delinquent Boys. Glencoe ICC: Free Press.
Anonymous. 1975. ‘Unemployment and the Unemployed – Part II: Unemployment in an
Appendage Economy’. Caribbean Dialogue 1, 11 (Oct.).
Association of Caribbean Universities and Research Institutes (UNICA). 1976. Crime and
Violence in the Caribbean. Committee Report. UNICA Social Development Project: P.O.
Box 12269, University Station, Gainsville, Florida 32604.
Cloward, R.A. and Ohlin, L.E. 1960. Delinquency and Opportunity: A Theory of Delinquent
Gangs. New York: The Free Press.
Connell, J.1971. ‘The Law and the Solution for Sociological Problems’. In Caribbean
Background III. Barbados: Centre for Multi-racial Studies.
Department of Correctional Services, Kingston Jamaica – Statistical Analysis of Crime for
Jamaica.
Eldridge, C. On Lumpen Ideology (n.d.)
Express December 29, 1976.
Fanon, F. 1965. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press.
Forrester, K. 1976. ‘Why Isn’t There a Crime Problem in Tobago?’ Course Work, Sociology
Department, UWI, St Augustine.
Girvan, N. 1975. Aspects of the Political Economy of Race in the Caribbean and in the
Americas. Working Paper, No. 7. UWI, ISER, Mona, Jamaica.
Hannerz, U. 1969. Soulside – Inquiries in Ghetto Culture and Community. Colombia University
Press.
Lewis, O. 1976. La Vida. Culture of Poverty Thesis. Panther Books.
Loney, M.1973. ‘Social Control in Cuba’. In Politics and Deviance, Ian Taylor and Laurie
Taylor. Pelican Books.
Lowenthal, D. West Indian Societies.
Lowhar, S.1976. ‘Youth Revolt and Williams’ Tactics’. The Caribbean Contact: 8.
Marshall, B.C. and Abbott, J.D. 1973. Crime in Developing Countries – A Comparative
Perspective. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Matza, D. 1964. Delinquency and Drift. New York: Wiley.
Miller, W.1958. ‘Lower Class Culture as a Generating Milieu of Gang Delinquency’. Journal
of Social Issues 4, no.3.
Munroe, T.1972. The Politics of Constitutional Decolonization Jamaica, 1944–1962. UWI ISER,
Mona, Jamaica.
Nettleford, R. 1970. ‘Mirror, Mirror – The Trinity of Race, Protest and Identity in Jamaica’.
Collins Stangster (Jamaica) Ltd.
Pryce, K. Forthcoming. ‘Endless Pressure – A Study of West Indian Life-styles’. In Bristol.
Penguin.
Richard, C. and Ohlin, L. 1960. Delinquency and Opportunity. New York: Free Press.
Stone, C. 1973. Class, Race and Political Behaviour in Urban Jamaica. UWI Mona, Jamaica:
ISER.
Stone, C. and Brown, A. 1976. Essays on Power and Change in Jamaica. UWI, Mona: Extra-
Mural Department and the Department of Government.
Taylor, I., Walton, P. and Young, J. 1973. Critical Criminology, R.K.P.
___.1973. ‘For a Social Theory of Deviance, R.K.P’ .The New Criminology.

16

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Thwaites, R.1971. ‘Jamaica Dangerous Drugs Laws: In the Absence of a West Indian
Jurisprudence’. Jamaica Law Journal.
Time Magazine. 1973. The Big Pay Off. Lockheed Scandal: Graft around the Globe. February
23.
White, G. ‘Rudie, Oh Rudie’. Caribbean Quarterly 3, no. 3.
Wilson, P. 1969. ‘Reputation and Respectability: A Suggestion for Caribbean Ethnography’.
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4, no.1.
Wolfgang, M. and Ferracuiti, F. 1967. Subculture of Violence. London: Tavistock.
Worsely, P.1972. ‘Frantz Fanon and the Lumpenproletariat’. Socialist Register.

NOTES
1. From Caribbean Issues, Volume 2, No. 2, Extra-Mural Unit (now School of Continuing
Studies), The University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus, Trinidad and
Tobago, August, 1976, p. 3–21, with permission.
2. Association of Caribbean Universities and Research Institutes (UNICA): Crime and
Violence in the Caribbean. Committee Report of Workshop proceeding held Jan. 31–
Feb. 2, 1976, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, UNICA, Social Development
through Communication Projects. Published by UNICA Social Development Project,
P.O. Box 12269, University Station, Gainsville, Florida 32604.
3. David Lowenthal: West Indian Societies. (Section on Legal Institutions).
4. Caribbean Dialogue, Vol. 1, No. 2 October 1975. “Unemployment and the
Unemployed – Part II: Unemployment in an Appendage Economy” p.11
5. Express (Trinidad and Tobago), December 29, 1976.
6. Department of Correctional Services, Kingston Jamaica – Statistical Analysis of Crime
for Jamaica
7. “The Big Pay Off. Lockheed Scandal: Graft Around the Globe.” Time Magazine
February 23, 1973.
8. Eldridge Cleaver: On Lumpen Ideology (n.d.)
9. Fanon, Peter Worsely, Elridge Cleaver etc.
10. The point has been fully grasped by Eliot Liebow in his book, Tally’s Corner which is
a study of black American ghetto males in a Washington, D.C. community. Liebow
sees the problem of black street corner men as being primarily economic and was
sensitive enough to include in this book a chapter entitled “Men and Jobs”.
Liebow describes the effect on street corner men of inferior job roles in the following
way:

The streetcorner man is under continuous assault by his job experiences

and job fears. His experiences and fears feed on one another. The kind of
job he can get – and frequently only after fighting for it, if then – steadily
confirms his fears, depresses his self-confidence and self-esteem until finally,
terrified of an opportunity even if one presents itself, he stands defeated by
his experiences, his belief in his own self-worth destroyed and his fears a
confirmed reality.

And the streetcorner man’s position in relation to the institution of marriage has

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been depicted by Liebow thus:

Thus, Marriage is an occasion of failure. To stay married is to live with your

failure, to be confronted with it day in and day out, it is to live in a world
whose standards of maleness are forever beyond one’s reach, where one is
continually tested and challenged and continually found wanting. In self-
defense, the husband retreats to the street corner. Here where the measure
of a man is continually smaller, and where weaknesses are somehow turned
upside down and almost magically transformed into strengths, he can be,
once again, a man among men, (Eliot Liebow: Tally’s Corner: A Study of Negro
Streetcorner Men. Little, Brown, 1967, p.71 and pp.135–36).

Liebow believes that if the problem represented by these men is to be solved; they
must be given economically valuable skills and full opportunity to use them. In the
appendage economies of the Caribbean (with the exception of Cuba), imperialist
domination and the resultant foreign-controlled nature of the industrialisation
process at present preclude any possibility of an effective amelioration of the
condition of the un-employed and under-employed along the lines suggested above by
Liebow — a realization which further increases the alienation of our delinquent
streetcorner youths and intensifies their demand for “revolution”.

11. Kenneth Pryce: Endless Pressure — A Study of West Indian Life-styles in Bristol. Penguin
(Forthcoming).
12. Garth White: “Rudie, Oh Rudie” in Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 3. No. 3.

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 B Y Y O U R T H E O R I E S Y O U S H A L L B E K N O W N

Two

By Your INTRODUCTION
Theories You In 1976, the late Ken Pryce wrote a
ground breaking article in which he called
Shall Be Known:
for the development of a Caribbean
Some Reflections criminology. In his view, the ‘intensification
on Caribbean of violence, lawlessness and “white collar”
Criminology1 corruption’ urgently required, ‘[t]he
scientific study of crime and deviant
behaviour in the Caribbean as an
Christopher Birkbeck independent field of inquiry in its own right’
(1976, 3). While applauding official concern
over the growing crime problem, Pryce
argued that academic research was also a
necessary part of the search for solutions.
Such research ‘should be the concern not
only of the politician, the jurist and the
policy-maker, but the sociologist and other
social scientists as well’ (1976, 3). As the core
of Caribbean criminology, Pryce proposed
the ‘New Criminology’ (see Taylor, Walton
and Young, 1973) that was attracting much
attention among researchers elsewhere,
because it offered ‘superior theoretical
advantages...as a basis for the development
of a framework for the sociology of crime,
deviance and social control in the Caribbean’
(1976, 7).
Twenty years later, other criminologists
took up the matter of a Caribbean
criminology. Richard Bennett and James
Lynch (1996) identified five characteristics
of Caribbean societies that, in their view,
rendered existing major theories of crime
inapplicable in the region. These were the
timing of the development process, the small
size of Caribbean nations, the salience of
tourism in many Caribbean economies, the
presence of the illegal drug trade, and the

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relative immaturity of political and social institutions. The authors concluded,

It may well be that with sufficient attention and thought, existing theories can
be adapted to include more transparently the situations currently confronting
Caribbean nations. At present, they do not. We argue that this inability to account
for the five areas of uniqueness of the Caribbean constitutes a plausible argument,
on intellectual grounds, for the creation of a sub-discipline of criminology:
Caribbean criminology (1996, 15).

In the same year, Maureen Cain compiled a collection of essays on crime and
justice in the Caribbean with the title ‘For a Caribbean Criminology’ (Caribbean
Quarterly, 1996). In her introductory essay, she warned against, ‘that deferential
relationship with western theory which assumes it to be right even when it does
not fit local experiences, which presents it as received wisdom even when it has
no relevance’ (Cain, 1996a, ii). Citing examples from the research included in her
compilation, Cain argued that,

Caribbean criminologists must engage with [western criminology] instrumentally

as we explore the concrete reality of Caribbean experiences: we may use it,
supplement it, and let it be our springboard, as well as challenging it, transgressing
it, and replacing it (1996a, i; emphasis in original).

Finally, in 1997, Ramesh Deosaran and Derek Chadee offered some brief
comments on the nature of Caribbean criminology, with specific reference to the
study of juvenile delinquency. Noting that the empirical status of delinquency
theories developed outside the Caribbean is by no means unequivocal, Deosaran
and Chadee concluded that ‘whatever form or shape a “Caribbean Criminology”
eventually takes, it will not be entirely immune or so distinct from theory already
developed elsewhere. It will be more likely a matter of theoretical integration,
without reinventing the wheel’ (1997, 40–41).
It is interesting that these authors discussed the identity of Caribbean
criminology in relation to theory. Such a strategy for the examination of identity
is, perhaps, not surprising. Theories represent the most general statements about
the subject we are studying, capable (hopefully) of subsuming multiple and diverse
sets of empirical circumstances. They also express the analytical orientation of a
discipline through the explanations — or linkages between variables — that they
propose. The facts of crime and criminal justice can be studied from different
viewpoints — for example, the aesthetics of crimes, the budgetary procedures of
criminal justice — but criminology has carved out its identity in relation to the
causes of crime, and the causes of social control (Black 1983). As a discipline,
criminology gains identity through its theories.
It is therefore reasonable to expect that discussions about the nature and
rationale for sub disciplines — whether cast in terms of a substantive or geographic

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focus (Bennett and Lynch, 1996, 8) — centre on theory. And the key question for
researchers interested in Caribbean criminology concerns the appropriate content
and direction of theoretical work among scholars working in and on the Caribbean.
As my review of prior opinions reveals, there is no consensus regarding this
question. Pryce advocated the adoption of an existing theoretical framework
(critical criminology), whereas Bennett and Lynch felt that existing theories do
not fit. Cain, and Deosaran and Chadee, took intermediate positions, thinking
that some existing theories might be relevant and some might not.
In this paper, I address the possibilities awaiting theoretical criminology in
the Caribbean. In so doing, I attempt to clarify and answer some of the points
raised by the authors that have gone before me, and also add a proposal for
theoretical analysis that has not been mentioned by others. Beyond an ongoing
interest in the development of regional criminologies (see, for example, Birkbeck,
1985, 1993) my participation in this debate, and my attempt to help move it
forward, is based on two sets of circumstances. First, Caribbean citizens (see, for
example, Moser and Holland 1997), scholars (e.g., Griffith 1997) and policymakers
(e.g., Gentles 1988) all comment on the magnitude and urgency of the crime
problem in the region. Governments and non-governmental agencies face the
challenge of doing something immediately and effectively to ameliorate the
problem. In the search for solutions, particularly long term solutions, our approach
to the crime problem (and the criminal justice problem) will be greatly aided by
understanding. And understanding is developed and advanced primarily through
theories. Policymakers are likely to ask, ‘Which theories should we study?’ ‘Which
theories should we apply?’ Caribbean criminology would play an extremely useful
practical role in the region if it can provide both initial and ongoing answers to
those questions.
Second, my reading of the literature on crime and social control in the
Caribbean leads me to conclude that generally, most scholars have not, so far,
engaged in truly theoretical work. By ‘theoretical work’ I mean the formulation,
or empirical testing, of a set of general statements that offer an explanation for a
given phenomenon (see Rudner 1966, Birkbeck 1985). Almost all of the studies I
consulted are arguably of significance for theory building. These range from
descriptive research on crime or social control (e.g., Dodd and Parris 1977, Lieber
1981; Ramoutar 1996), through studies identifying variables associated with aspects
of crime or social control (e.g., Brathwaite 1996, King 1997), to studies that refer
more directly to explanation (e.g., Headley 1996) or to theories (e.g., Bennett,
Shields and Daniels 1997, Deosaran and Chadee 1997, Pacheco Maldonado 1989).
However, none of these studies represent theoretical work as I have just defined
it, the kind of work that — to take but one example — is exemplified internationally
by Braithwaite’s (1989) book on reintegrative shaming, and subsequent tests of
his theory (e.g., Makkai and Braithwaite 1994, Vagg 1998).2 Indeed, Caribbean
criminology could be considered to exist at a pre-theoretical level, formulating

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questions, collecting basic descriptive data, making the first contacts with
established theoretical perspectives. The time is ripe for continued reflection on
the possibilities for theoretical criminology in the Caribbean.
In what follows, I first take up the question raised by previous authors, namely,
the extent to which Caribbean criminological theory is likely to be unique. Based
on my conception of theory and my understanding of geography, I do not find
support for the scenarios offered by Pryce or Bennett and Lynch. Instead, I try to
show why the intuitive conclusions of Cain, and Deosaran and Chadee are likely
to be correct. Following that, I identify and discuss three ways in which theoretical
criminology can develop in the Caribbean.

THEORIES AND PLACES: A COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP

Criminologists frequently think of theories as tied to places. Some US
criminologists, for example, worry about the relevance to other parts of the world
of theories developed by US researchers (e.g., Beirne 1983, Bennett 1980, Hartjen
and Priyadarsini 1984). Other criminologists wonder if the areas of the world
where criminology is less developed also require theories that take account of
local specificities (e.g., Clegg and Whetton 1995, Sumner 1982). Twenty years
ago, many Latin American criminologists were calling for the development of
Latin American theories of crime (Birkbeck 1983); and as we have seen, the
question of the relevance of existing theories is now being raised by some
criminologists in the Caribbean.
Underlying these concerns is an overly simplistic view of theories and their
relationship with places, which is based on the following assumptions. First, the
identification of the places with reference to which a theory was formulated is
self evident (Assumption one). Second, theories have received substantial empirical
support in the places with reference to which they were supposedly formulated
(Assumption two). Third, places vary in a criminologically significant manner in
accordance with the common regional terminology that we use to divide up the
world (Assumption three). Each of these assumptions can be questioned.
The complex formal arguments specifying the relationship of theories to places
can be summarised as follows. Theories are built around concepts that represent
abstractions from experience. To test a theory, researchers must develop a set of
indicators that provide a valid empirical interpretation of the theory’s concepts.
They must also specify the ‘scope’ of the theory, that is, the conditions under
which the theory’s propositions apply (Cohen 1989). The development of
indicators and the specification of scope conditions are the prerequisites for
establishing the testable domain of the theory. The theory can be empirically
evaluated anywhere within its testable domain, and if evaluation supports the
theory’s claims, the applicable domain — that is, the parts of reality that the theory
can account for — begins to take shape.3 Neither the testable nor the applicable
domains can be discovered without considerable analytical reflection and empirical

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 B Y Y O U R T H E O R I E S Y O U S H A L L B E K N O W N

research. Moreover, these domains are not necessarily expressed in spatial terms.4
With these general principles in mind, we return to a more detailed consideration
of the three assumptions outlined above.
Regarding Assumption one, we must note that when criminologists develop
theories, they are only partly thinking about specific places. For example, Hirschi
(1969) proposed his well known control theory of crime while working in
California. But although Hirschi tested his theory with data from the Richmond
Youth Project, there is no way that we can conclude that he was thinking only of
California youth. He may have drawn part of his theoretical inspiration from
preliminary contacts with local juveniles, but his theory contains general concepts
(such as ‘social bonds’, and ‘attachment’) that imply a potential testable domain
that extends well beyond the boundaries of California. Where the spatial
boundaries of that domain lie (if they exist) could only be specified after careful
geographic sampling from different parts of the world, something that has not
been done. Kempf (1993) identified 71 tests of Hirschi’s theory published between
1970 and 1991. The majority (62) were conducted in the United States, with only
nine located elsewhere (seven in Canada, and one each in Australia and Sweden).5
The second assumption — that theories have received substantial empirical
support in the places with reference to which they were formulated — is equally
problematic. Not only is it difficult to specify the places for which a theory was
formulated, but the relevance of a theory is often partial and always provisional.
Continuing with the example of Hirschi’s theory, Kempf (1993, p. 164) concluded
— largely, as we have seen, on the basis of tests in the United States — that
‘different, and sometimes contrary, results were found.’ Indeed, the final pages of
Kempf’s review leave the reader with the strong impression that careful, systematic,
testing of Hirschi’s theory has hardly begun. The control theory of crime is
therefore anchored very weakly in empirical studies, even within the region to
which it is supposedly most applicable.
Regarding Assumption three, the use of everyday regional terminology to
assess the relevance of theories is problematic. Regions are the end product of a
process of classification, in which places are grouped together on the basis of
their similarity to each other and their differences from other places (Grigg 1965,
1967). One problem inherent to regionalisation is the fuzziness of our
classifications: it is often difficult to determine where one region ends and another
begins. For example, Mintz and Price (1985) defined the Caribbean in terms of a
political history of conquest and an economic system based on plantations and
slavery, which (with the exceptions of Belize and Guianas) were confined mainly
to the islands bordering the Caribbean Sea. However, they also recognised that,
‘In terms of topography, rainfall, soil, terrain, and the nature of post Conquest
occupation...a thin coastal strip of the mainland...belongs with the islands’ (1985,
4). Therefore, how should criminologists treat, for example, crime and social
control in coastal Venezuela? Are they studying part of Latin America, or part of
the Caribbean?

23

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 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
Ma già! Hai ragione! Venisti a vedermi... vestita da sposa!
Faustina
(voltandosi a Giuseppe, trionfalmente) Lo avete saputo adesso chi
sono?! (Quindi, a Giulia:) Ha finto di non riconoscermi perchè... non
ha la coscienza pulita. Quel giorno, in casa del professore, mi fece il
cascamorto!
Giulia
(celiando in tono di biasimo) Giuseppe! Che mi fate sentire?!
Giuseppe
Non state a credere, signora Giulia....
Faustina
Ma questi altri anni, caro don Giuseppe, per voi sono stati un vero
guaio. Mi sembrate una rovina di Pompei!
Giuseppe
Io mi avvio all'ottantesimo, e mi accontento.
Faustina
(a Giulia:) Voi, invece, benone!
Giulia
No, Faustina....
Faustina
Benone, vi dico!
Giulia
Coi patimenti che ho avuti....
Faustina
Quali patimenti?
 Giulia
Non sai la grande sventura che mi ha colpita?
Faustina
Ah, sì. Quella la so. Non ve ne parlavo per non affliggervi. Fu
crudele, sissignora, ma adesso, santa pazienza, quanto tempo è
passato?
Giulia
Due anni e qualche mese.
Faustina
E dunque!
Giulia
Per me è come se fosse ieri.
Giuseppe
(intervenendo con una certa solennità e con soddisfazione
orgogliosa) Questa qui non è di quelle che si consolano!
Faustina
Me ne dispiace.
Giuseppe
(rabbioso) Io, al contrario, me ne compiaccio; e, se non ne fossi
stato sicuro, non sarei rimasto accanto a lei. (Seccato dalla presenza
di Faustina, rimette in fretta i fiori nel canestro per andarsene.)
Giulia
Non vi arrabbiate, Giuseppe. A Faustina pare che io debba essere
ancora una bambola, perchè quando lasciò la casa della mamma io
avevo da poco allungate le vesti e tutte e due ancora «bambola» mi
chiamavano.
 Faustina
(a Giuseppe:) E poi, se avessi detto che avrei voluto trovarla
consolata con un altro marito, capirei la vostra collera. Ma io,
nemmeno per sogno! Un altro marito?! Non ci mancherebbe che
questo! Ne dettero uno anche a me, mezzo secolo fa, perchè
profittarono che non sapevo di che si trattasse. Ma dopo di lui, caro
don Giuseppe, pace all'anima sua, ci feci croce. Se i mariti non
fossero uomini, be', si potrebbe chiudere un occhio. Ma con gli
uomini?! Dio ne scampi i cani!
Giuseppe
(prendendo il canestro e avviandosi in furia) E con le donne!?... Per
conto mio, mai niente!
Faustina
Me ne congratulo con voi!
Giuseppe
(alzando le spalle sgarbatamente, sta per uscire.)
Giulia
Un momento, Giuseppe....
Giuseppe
(s'arresta e si volta) Comandate.
Giulia
Quando arriva la carrozza, avvertitemi immediatamente.
Giuseppe
Beninteso.
Giulia
E badate che deve venire il dottor Manlio Ardenzi. Potete farlo
passare.
 Giuseppe
(con un atto di umile meraviglia) Lo volete ricevere?!
Giulia
È un discepolo di Raimondo; è il segretario del Comitato. Mi ha
scritto che gli è necessario di parlarmi prima che io esca di casa....
Non posso scacciarlo.
Giuseppe
(non sa dissimulare il suo vivo malcontento, ma, accigliato, si
rassegna per obbedienza.) Lo farò passare. (Esce.)

SCENA III.

GIULIA e FAUSTINA.
Faustina
Ma che cos'è? Vi fa il cane di guardia?
Giulia
(con bontà e mestizia) Poverino! È stato abituato a volermi bene
così.
Faustina
Un bene da far mancare il respiro!
Giulia
(mutando — con vivacità affettuosa) E tu?... Dimmi di te, dimmi di
te, Faustina. Se tu sapessi che piacere il rivederti! Da dieci minuti in
qua mi pare di essere meno sola, e anche meno infelice. La tua cara
parlantina di brontolona allegra mi fa un po' rivivere la mia
fanciullezza. Ah, che beneficio ne sento! Parla, parla, Faustina!
Perchè sei scomparsa? Come te la sei cavata tutto questo tempo?
Che hai fatto? Dove sei stata?
Faustina
In America sono stata!
Giulia
Ma brava!
Faustina
Si, si, un bell'affare! Mi avevano dato ad intendere che laggiù le
monete d'oro venissero fuori come i funghi....
Giulia
(animandosi e interessandosi) E invece?
Faustina
Ho lasciato il paese dell'oro con quindici soldi in saccoccia.
Giulia
(guardandola graziosamente da capo a piedi) Però... però... sei tutta
elegante, oggi.
Faustina
E vi pare che questi paramenti siano roba di mia proprietà? Me li son
presi a prestito per fare un po' di festa a voi. Ma la faccenda, cara la
mia bambola, è molto seria. Sono agli estremi!
Giulia
(con un lampo di giocondità) Faustina!... Di': ti piacerebbe di tornare
con me?
Faustina
E non l'avevate ancora capito che per questo sono qui?
Giulia
Io mi ti piglio a braccia aperte.
Faustina
Sono piuttosto sconquassata, è vero, ma per lavorare....
Giulia
Al posto che ti darò io non farai nessuna fatica. Ti darò nientedimeno
che il posto di portinaia nel mio ospizio.
Faustina
Nel vostro ospizio?!
Giulia
Sicuro! Sarà inaugurato ben presto. Vedrai che cosa bella.... Io fondo
un ospizio, Faustina. Col patrimonio che m'ha lasciato il povero
Raimondo, io istituisco un ricovero per le vedove indigenti. Capisci
ora? Parlo di quelle, naturalmente, che per la loro condizione sociale
non possono guadagnarsi da vivere. Ma, spieghiamoci: bisogna,
soprattutto, che non abbiano l'intenzione di rimaritarsi; bisogna che
si propongano di fare una vita modesta, rassegnata, tranquilla,
umile; quasi monastica, insomma.
Faustina
(attonita e compiaciuta) Oh, guarda, guarda, guarda!... E voi?
Giulia
Io starò nel ritiro come le altre. Sarò la sorella maggiore, sarò la
direttrice....
Faustina
Una specie di madre badessa?
Giulia
(con gaiezza) Precisamente: una specie di madre badessa!
Faustina
Ed io la guardiana?
Giulia
E tu la guardiana.
Faustina
(giubilante) Ma questa dell'ospizio è stata un'idea coi fiocchi!
Giulia
Ci vieni?
Faustina
Mi spetta di diritto. Più indigente e più vedova di me, dove la
trovate?
Giulia
(sempre più animandosi alle celie della buona donna e
secondandola) Hai l'intenzione di rimaritarti tu, Faustina?
Faustina
Neanche se torno a nascere!
Giulia
Quand'è così, non c'è nulla in contrario!
Faustina
Voto di castità e posto di portinaia!
(Ridono un poco tutte e due.)
Giulia
Ed ora, fila, fila, fila, vecchia mia. Tu ti pigli tutto il mio tempo, ed io
ho ancora da pettinarmi e da vestirmi.
Faustina
A pettinarvi e a vestirvi, almeno fino a che non entro in carica, ci
penso io, perbacco!
Giulia
Non te ne vuoi andare?
Faustina
Fossi pazza! Provvisoriamente, io mi pianto in casa vostra.
Giulia
(con una piccola esultanza infantile) E oggi mi pettini proprio tu?
Proprio tu, come una volta?
Faustina
Come una volta, non so, perchè, allora, dei vostri capelli ero io la
padrona.
Giulia
È vero, Faustina. E nelle tue mani diventavano più lucidi, più folti....
Faustina
Di questo non ce n'era bisogno, perchè avevate in testa una massa
di seta così!
Giulia
Che belle treccie, Faustina, mi lasciavi cadere sulle spalle!
Faustina
E avete dimenticato quando di nascosto ne tagliai una ciocchetta per
darla allo studente che mi rompeva le scatole?
Giulia
Ah, furfante! Me lo dicesti dopo di avergliela data, e mi facesti
piangere.
Faustina
Evvia che non mi rimproveraste poi molto!
Giulia
E pensare che continueranno a passar gli anni come tanti ne sono
passati e quel coso lì, per colpa tua, possederà sempre una ciocca
dei miei capelli!
Faustina
E di che vi preoccupate? Potete essere sicura che quelli non
imbiancheranno mai.
Giulia
Non tocchiamo questo tasto, Faustina. Sai che comincio ad averne
dei capelli bianchi? Ne ho già trovati quattro o cinque.
Faustina
(con un gesto comico di spavento) Misericordia! (Per chiasso le
guarda i capelli sulla fronte e sulla nuca.)
Giulia
A prima vista non si scorgono, ma chi sa che non siano di più.
Faustina
(sciogliendole ad un tratto i capelli) Aspettate un momento che
Faustina vi dirà con precisione a che ne siamo.
Giulia
(scansandosi e irritandosi un poco con una specie di pudore
ingenuamente civettuolo) No! No!... Che fai?...
Faustina
(in tono d'allarme burlesco) Uh, quanti!
Giulia
(sùbito, con dolorosa meraviglia) Davvero!?
 Faustina
(tutta festosa, allargandole quasi con orgoglio il manto dei capelli
sulle spalle) Ma che! Neppure uno bianco... e neppure uno di meno!
La stessa ricchezza, lo stesso tesoro d'una volta!
Giulia
(sfuggendola col viso tutto rilucente di soddisfazione femminile)
Niente! Niente! Non ti credo.... Non ti credo....

SCENA IV.

GIULIA, FAUSTINA, MANLIO, indi GIUSEPPE.

Manlio
(arrestandosi di là dalla soglia, con molto riguardo) Permesso?
Giulia
(facendo un salto, — a Faustina:) Oh Dio! Lo vedi che figura mi fai
fare! (Cercando di celarsi e attorcigliandosi i capelli) Abbia pazienza,
signor Ardenzi.... Un minuto solo....
Manlio
Prego, prego.... (Vedendo l'imbarazzo di Giulia, discretamente, senza
guardare, si ritira e si riduce dietro il muro.)
Giulia
Presto, Faustina! Presto! Le forcinelle dove sono?
Faustina
(aiutandola a raccogliere e a fissare i capelli sulla testa) Eccole qua:
le ho io. Ma perchè tutta questa paura? Non sono già i capelli che
bisogna nascondere agli uomini.
 Giulia
Che c'entra! È sempre una sfacciataggine mostrarsi coi capelli scinti.
Faustina
(mettendo a posto le forcinelle e dando delle occhiate alla porta)
State tranquilla, perchè quello lì ha avuta tanta paura di guardarvi
quanta voi ne avete avuta di farvi guardare.
Giulia
(dopo essersi chiusa la vestaglia al collo) Avanti, signor Ardenzi....
Venga pure.
Manlio
(in redingote d'occasione e con in mano il cappello e un piccolo
fascicolo di carta scritta, entra stranamente impacciato ed
emozionato) Io sono mortificatissimo, signora, di essere giunto molto
inopportuno....
Giulia
(allungando in fretta le maniche che si è accorta di avere ancora
rimboccate) Ma no.... Devo io, invece, fare delle scuse a lei.
Manlio
Ho tanto pregato il suo servo affinchè mi annunziasse!... Egli mi ha
riconosciuto e si è anche ricordato d'avermi introdotto qui molto
tempo fa con... Luciano Marnieri; ma intanto non ha voluto
annunciarmi. Stizzosamente mi ha ripetuto più volte che potevo
passare ed io....
Faustina
(osserva Manlio con la coda dell'occhio.)
Giulia
(a Manlio:) Non è il caso di preoccuparsi così.... Ero un po' in
disordine, ecco.
 Faustina
(accostandosi a Giulia, sottovoce:) Posso andare ad aspettarvi nella
vostra camera?
Giulia
Certo.
Faustina
Dov'è?
Giulia
(indicando a sinistra) È di là.
Faustina
(pianissimo) Col patto che non dimentichiamo la regola del ritiro.
Giulia
Cioè?
Faustina
Uomini, mai più!
Giulia
(dandole un colpetto con la mano sulla spalla e facendosi quasi
seria) Scioccona!
Faustina
(accenna una riverenza a Manlio, ed esce a sinistra.)
Manlio
(si arresta verso il fondo non osando di avanzarsi.)
Giulia
Smetta il cappello. Segga. (Ella siede.)
 Manlio
Grazie.... (Depone in un angolo il cappello e il fascicolo e resta in
piedi, un po' stralunato.)
Giulia
(guardandolo con una certa meraviglia) Non vuole sedere?
Manlio
(sedendo inquieto) Mi perdoni, signora, se non riesco a dissimulare il
mio turbamento. Recandomi da lei, io ho dovuto, in certo modo, fare
astrazione da un desiderio manifestato a tutti noi dal professore
l'ultima volta che lo vedemmo, proprio in questa medesima stanza.
Sì, in un momento di orribile angoscia, egli ci pregò di non venire
mai più nella sua casa; e, benchè io abbia la sicurezza che il suo
pensiero non potette essere rivolto a me, pure, lo confesso,... ora...
provo una strana... una penosa sensazione. Stando qui, io quasi
rivedo quei suoi occhi così pieni di dolore, quasi riodo quelle sue
parole così piene di mistero..., e mi pento di non aver rispettato il
suo desiderio.
Giulia
(rimettendosi dal turbamento che queste rievocazioni producono in
lei, assume un contegno chiuso e fiero.) Ella avrebbe potuto espormi
nella sua lettera tuttociò che le era necessario dirmi.
Manlio
Veramente, non l'avrei potuto. Veda, per incarico dei miei compagni
di studio, io dovrò pronunziare un discorso alla commemorazione
d'oggi. M'ero proposto di lumeggiare il gran valore morale dell'uomo
che è sparito accennando alle tracce di alta virtù lasciate nella vita di
sua moglie e quindi al concetto della istituzione ch'ella sta per
fondare. E giacchè sarebbe stato sconveniente il pregarla di darmene
in iscritto l'autorizzazione che mi era indispensabile, come dovevo
regolarmi?...
 Giulia
(ha un movimento di fastidio, e con severità inarca le sopracciglia,
soffrendo e tormentandosi nella prudenza disdegnosa.) Ma, scusi...:
perchè, perchè occuparsi di me?!
Manlio
Nessun elogio da tributarsi a quell'uomo potrebbe essere più
significativo e più commovente di questa specie di tempio che ella
innalza accanto alla tomba di suo marito.
Giulia
(contenendosi nervosamente) Lo innalzo per me, per me: non per
mostrarlo agli altri.
Manlio
(animandosi con entusiasmo) Agli altri parrà pur sempre il simbolo
solenne d'una fedeltà esemplare! L'ammirazione che ella desta in
tutti non le consentirà di nascondere tanta sublimità.
Giulia
(scattando in un imprudente sfogo di ambascia) Ma è appunto da
questa ammirazione che io vorrei finalmente liberarmi! Mi sembra
che tutti i miei palpiti, che tutte le mie lagrime, che tutti i miei
spasimi abbiano il controllo quotidiano dell'ammirazione! Mi sembra
d'essere vigilata, quasi che l'umanità non possa oramai più vivere
senza la mia virtù! E io ne sono soffocata, sì, ne sono soffocata
nell'anima, perchè ho l'impressione che mi si tolga perfino la libertà
di pensare, di sentire e di spasimare come e quanto voglio io!
Manlio
(scosso, confuso, si alza. Poi balbetta:) Se avessi potuto
prevedere....
Giulia
(levandosi imbarazzata) No... non badi, non badi alle mie parole....
Sono sempre un po' nervosa.... Non so io stessa ciò che ho detto....
Volevo solamente pregarla di non parlare nè del mio ospizio, nè di
me. Oggi, sarò lì per un dovere a cui non saprei sottrarmi. Ma
desidero e spero che almeno lei e tutti quelli che mi hanno
conosciuta al fianco di Raimondo Artunni accondiscendano a
considerarmi, da oggi in poi, come una persona morta.
Manlio
Per conto mio, intanto, le garantisco che oggi mi guarderò bene dal
pronunciare il suo nome.
Giuseppe
(entra dalla comune senza avanzarsi, come aspettando d'essere
visto. Ha in mano un vassoio.)
Giulia
Che c'è, Giuseppe?
Giuseppe
Una signora chiede d'essere ricevuta.
Giulia
Chi è?
Giuseppe
È una signora attempata. Dall'aspetto si vede che è una gentildonna.
Mi ha dato il suo biglietto. (Si avanza sogguardando Manlio con
ostilità e diffidenza e le porge il biglietto nel vassoio.)
Giulia
(legge il nome ed ha un forte sussulto. Poi, dopo una evidente
titubanza) Credo che sia molto tardi.... Io devo essere pronta per
uscire.... È venuta la carrozza, Giuseppe?
Giuseppe
Non ancora.
Giulia
Ebbene,... se questa signora è disposta ad attendere qualche
minuto, tanto che io abbia il tempo di vestirmi,... potete farla
entrare.
Giuseppe
Va benissimo. (Esce.)
Giulia
(a Manlio:) Io ho la sua promessa, non è vero?
Manlio
(mettendosi la mano sul petto) Certamente!
Giulia
(accomiatandosi) Buon giorno, signor Ardenzi.
Manlio
I miei rispetti, signora.
Giulia
(esce a sinistra.)
Manlio
(disorientato, quasi mortificato, si stringe nelle spalle come per dire:
«ho fatto male», e prende sollecitamente le sue carte e il suo
cappello. Sul punto d'uscire s'imbatte nella signora Marnieri.)

SCENA V.

MANLIO e LA SIGNORA MARNIERI.

 Manlio
(con una espressione di stupore e quasi di spavento) Signora
Marnieri! Voi qui?
La signora Marnieri
(che entrava timidissimamente, nel trovarsi faccia a faccia con
Manlio, ha avuto come un urto ed è rimasta sconcertata e smarrita.)
Sì,... vengo... a chiedere un piccolo favore alla signora Artunni....
Manlio
Voi non l'avete mai conosciuta di persona.... Sicchè, non un favore
da chiedere, ma una ragione più impellente deve avervi decisa a
venire da lei.
La signora Marnieri
(trepidante, spaurita) Perchè mi dite questo?
Manlio
Perchè a traverso ciò che vostro figlio mi ha scritto dal suo esilio
pochi giorni fa, egli mi sembrava tutt'altro che tranquillo.
(Parlano entrambi circospetti, con la preoccupazione di potere essere
ascoltati.)
La signora Marnieri
(con le lagrime nella voce) Tutt'altro, tutt'altro che tranquillo! Io ho
tanta paura.... Se sapeste!... Non vivo più!
Manlio
Ma bisogna convenire che questa frenesia crescente per una donna
di cui non ha mai posseduto nè il corpo nè il cuore è un caso
inesplicabile.
La signora Marnieri
Quanto più allontanate dall'acqua un assetato, tanto meno egli si
rassegna alla sete. E poi, come potete giudicare voi!? Luciano è nato
così. Luciano è l'uomo della febbre e del martirio. Io l'ho visto
fanciullo vegliare le notti intere in una specie di tormento mistico
come un piccolo asceta d'altri tempi! All'ascetismo d'una volta ora ha
sostituito una donna, e questa donna sarà la fiamma della sua anima
per tutta la vita! (Indi, tremebonda, vincendo appena il suo ritegno)
Ditemi con franchezza, signor Manlio,... credete utile che io le parli?
Manlio
(in un tono di vivo rammarico) Purtroppo, la vostra idea mi sembra
assolutamente assurda.
La signora Marnieri
(desolata, ma ancora tutta presa dalla sua istintiva illusione) È
assurdo sperare che una donna buona si commuova alla sorte d'un
giovane che si consuma per lei?
Manlio
(con intensità) Voi dimenticate che fra lei e Luciano vi è un morto
che è stato qualcuno per tutti e due.
La signora Marnieri
Ma Luciano ha fatto per lui quello che solamente un santo avrebbe
potuto fare.
Manlio
Lo riconosco.
La signora Marnieri
E dunque?!
Manlio
Io non vi esprimo soltanto un convincimento mio: io personifico, per
così dire, il criterio, l'opinione, il convincimento generale. La fedeltà
della vedova Artunni all'uomo di cui ella è stata la compagna perfetta
pare oramai a tutti come proclamata da una legge immutabile!
La signora Marnieri
(concitatissima e abbassando ancora di più la voce) No, no, signor
Manlio; io le parlerò, io le parlerò, perchè,... malgrado tutto, mi
giunge insistentemente una voce segreta che mi consiglia di sperare.
Manlio
Sicchè, in fondo, voi sperate che ella finirà con l'amare Luciano?!...
La signora Marnieri
Potrebbe amare in lui l'Amore, e ciò sarebbe già il principio di
qualche cosa.
Manlio
Signora mia, io non voglio aggiungere più nulla. Me ne vado, e vi
auguro con tutto il cuore che, in un modo o in un altro, la
provvidenza vi assista.
La signora Marnieri
(urgentemente) Ma se scrivete a Luciano, per carità!, attento a non
dargli il sospetto di avermi vista in casa di lei. Mi maledirebbe!
Manlio
Pensate che io non abbia capito sùbito che ci eravate venuta di
nascosto?
La signora Marnieri
(con un tenero accento giustificativo) Non ci sarei potuta venire
altrimenti....
Manlio
(dà un sospiro di compianto. Indi, risolutamente) Be', vi saluto,
signora Marnieri.
 La signora Marnieri
A rivederci, signor Manlio.
Manlio
(esce.)

SCENA VI.

LA SIGNORA MARNIERI e GIULIA.

La signora Marnieri
(rimasta sola, è invasa di nuovo dallo sconforto. In piedi, girando un
po' gli sguardi trepidi intorno, non osa neppure di muoversi. Le
sembra di essere un'intrusa in quella casa. Le sembra di non dover
respirare l'aria che respira. Lo sconforto aumenta. Ella rivolge gli
occhi al cielo in atto di umile preghiera. Quando, con l'orecchio
vigile, ode lievemente un rumore di passi, ricompone la fisonomia e
con intensa emozione aspetta.)
(Entra Giulia. — Indossa un abito quasi di lutto, sobrio, severo, ma
piuttosto elegante. In testa un piccolo cappellino chiuso con la
veletta alzata sulla fronte.)
Giulia
(vedendo la signora Marnieri, accentua un contegno impenetrabile, e
riserbatamente saluta:) Signora....
(Le due donne si osservano.)
La signora Marnieri
Mi sono permessa di presentarmi da me... perchè ho contato sulla
sua cortesia,... sulla sua indulgenza.... E poi ho pensato che
probabilmente il mio nome... non le sarebbe giunto nuovo.
Giulia
(con una quasi impercettibile espressione di risentimento, la invita a
sedere) Si accomodi, signora Marnieri.
La signora Marnieri
(ancora in piedi) Ma vedo che sta per uscire.... Se la disturbo....
Giulia
La prego di accomodarsi!
La signora Marnieri
Per accontentarla.... (Siede.)
Giulia
(sedendo anche lei) A che debbo, signora, la sua visita?
La signora Marnieri
Ecco... io desideravo, anzitutto, di conoscerla.... Lo desideravo
vivamente!
Giulia
È un desiderio del quale non saprei rendermi ragione....
La signora Marnieri
Ho sentito dire tanto bene di lei....
Giulia
(diventando più guardinga) Non si desidera di conoscere tutte le
persone di cui si sente dir bene.
La signora Marnieri
Ma lei... non è per me una persona come un'altra.
Giulia
(trasalisce.)
 La signora Marnieri
C'è qualche cosa... che mi spinge verso di lei ed a cui non ho
resistito fino ad oggi... che per il timore di riuscirle fastidiosa.
Giulia
(schivandosi con perplessità dissimulata) Non comprendo, signora.
La signora Marnieri
È giusto. Non può comprendere. (Titubante e incapace di vincere la
titubanza, cerca parole incerte e prudenti) Se fossi almeno sicura di
non darle troppo fastidio, le chiederei la grazia... insperata... di
ascoltarmi,... e allora... forse....
Giulia
(dibattendosi tra la tentazione di ascoltare e l'austerità che si è
imposta) Io non ho il diritto... d'impedire ch'ella parli....
La signora Marnieri
(credendosi incoraggiata, ma avendo sempre nella voce il tremito
della timidità pavida) Ho detto che c'è qualche cosa che mi spinge a
lei irresistibilmente, ma ho detto poco. Avrei dovuto dire — e non
l'ho osato sùbito — che lei è la speranza da cui sono sorretta, che lei
è il battito incessante del mio cuore di madre....
Giulia
(interrompendola con un amaro slancio inconsulto) Io non sono
responsabile, signora Marnieri, della strana esaltazione di suo figlio!
La signora Marnieri
(in uno scatto di sorpresa) Ma, dunque, lei sa tutto?!
Giulia
Malauguratamente, so abbastanza!
La signora Marnieri
E come ha potuto sapere quello che egli le ha sempre celato?
Giulia
No.... Abbia la bontà: non m'interroghi su questa circostanza.
L'essenziale è che io sono profondamente meravigliata che il tempo
non abbia estirpato dall'animo d'un giovane onesto un sentimento
malsano e ingiustificabile!
La signora Marnieri
(prorompendo) Ah, signora! Quel sentimento è diventato più vivo,
più ostinato, più forte che mai, e la giovinezza del mio Luciano ne
sarà distrutta lentamente o troncata d'un colpo!
Giulia
Questo è il grido d'allarme d'una madre che vede più gravi e più
acute, di quanto davvero non siano, le sofferenze del suo figliuolo.
Ma nessuna giovinezza si lascia realmente distruggere da un amore.
La signora Marnieri
Non è il grido d'allarme di una madre, no, perchè io ho voluto essere
e sono difatti, soprattutto, l'amica di mio figlio. Sono l'amica, a cui
egli ha confidato ogni più piccolo segreto fin da quando ancora
bambino cominciò precocemente a temere i pericoli della vita. Quello
che le ho riferito non è una supposizione della madre costernata: è
bensì il segreto di lui rivelato a me in una confessione d'ogni giorno.
Allontanandosi da questa città due anni or sono, sognava egli stesso
di guarire e fidava nella lontananza, fidava nella fermezza del proprio
carattere e in tutto quanto la sua età gli prometteva. Mi proibì di
seguirlo, nè io l'avrei potuto seguire, perchè in casa, mio marito, che
ha molti anni più di me, e mia figlia, che lavora, abbisognano di tutte
le mie cure; ma non ho mai cessato di stare col pensiero accanto al
mio Luciano e d'interrogarlo con quella dolcezza che ha sempre
trovate le vie più intime del suo cuore. Ebbene, signora, le lettere
che egli mi ha scritto fino ad oggi sono i documenti d'una esistenza
travagliata che si agita tristemente come in una fitta oscurità,
chiedendo un poco di sole! La lontananza, la fermezza del suo
carattere e le risorse della sua età non lo hanno guarito! Lei dice che
nessuna giovinezza sì lascia distruggere dall'amore...; ma io — mi
perdoni se mi esprimo con troppa sincerità — non credo che questo
sia il suo convincimento. Una creatura buona e dolente come lei sa
per prova che i dolori umani non hanno limite e sa per istinto che
l'amore può essere il più grande dei dolori!
Giulia
(con gli occhi bassi, pianamente) L'ho ascoltata per il rispetto che lei
ha saputo impormi; ma ho fatto male ad ascoltarla.
La signora Marnieri
Perchè?...
Giulia
(con asprezza angosciosa) Perchè anche la compassione a cui mi si
costringe per un uomo che mi ama è una viltà della mia coscienza.
La signora Marnieri
La compassione non è mai una viltà!
Giulia
(energicamente) Sono io che devo giudicarmi, signora Marnieri, e la
clemenza sua non renderà me più clemente verso me stessa! Del
resto, che cosa potrebbe mutare per la mia compassione?
La signora Marnieri
(paurosa)... Anche dalla compassione... può nascere l'affetto.
Giulia
(drizzandosi in piedi con una immediata irruenza dolorosa) Avrei il
dovere di morire se sapessi di amare! (Breve pausa.) Il nostro
colloquio, signora Marnieri, è durato già troppo.
La signora Marnieri
(si leva con umiltà.)
Giulia
(continuando) Lei è venuta a turbarmi la pace, e non si è arrestata
neppure all'idea di violare la custodia sacra intorno alla quale io ho
raccolta tutta intera la mia vita. Lei è giustificata, lo intendo bene,
dalla cecità dell'affetto materno; ma io vorrei fulminare col mio
sdegno colui che avrebbe dovuto sentire orrore di questa violazione
e invece ne ha affidato il tentativo alla tenerezza di sua madre!
La signora Marnieri
(assorgendo vivissimamente con uno slancio impetuoso dell'anima e
della voce) No! Luciano non sa nulla! Glie lo giuro sul mio onore.
Non sa nulla!
Giulia
(spalanca gli occhi e indietreggia.) (Un silenzio.) (Poi, quasi
sottomessa) Le domando perdono di avere offeso suo figlio.
La signora Marnieri
(con pari sottomissione) Soltanto a me, soltanto a me, spetta il suo
sdegno. Ho creduto che i patimenti già sopportati con rassegnazione
da Luciano avessero pagato il debito di gratitudine ch'egli ha verso il
povero morto e ho creduto che avessero potuto fargli condonare il
sacrifizio senza fine. Questo è stato l'errore mio. Ed ecco che ne
sono acerbamente punita. La certezza che lei mi serberà rancore o
che forse mi odierà addirittura sarà per me un nuovo strazio... che si
aggiungerà a quello di assistere, incapace di aiuto e da lontano, alla
immensa infelicità del mio figliuolo.
Giulia
(profondamente commossa) Non è così, signora Marnieri. Da me lei
non deve aspettarsi nè odio nè rancore. (Con tenera lealtà)
Tutt'altro!... So di essere l'origine di tutte le sue pene, e ciò mi fa
umile dinanzi a lei quasi come una colpevole. Io... spero molto che
un giorno la tranquillità sia finalmente restituita a suo figlio ed a lei.
Quel giorno mi sentirei alleviata anch'io, e mi parrebbe... d'essere
divenuta migliore.
La signora Marnieri
Io non l'ho più questa speranza! Io non l'ho più! (Piange.)
(Un silenzio.)
Giulia
(le si accosta come per abbracciarla: poi repentinamente, con un
piccolo fremito proibitivo, si trattiene, e le dice con dolcezza:) Via,
non si scoraggi.... Voglio ammettere che suo figlio sia d'una
sensibilità eccezionale;... voglio ammettere che la stessa tenacia, con
cui ha dovuto tentare di vincere il suo sentimento, glielo abbia poi
cacciato più dentro le vene; ma chi può prevedere tutte le
trasformazioni e tutte le vicende a cui un giovane è destinato?... Chi
può prevedere tutte le cose belle che lo aspettano sul suo
cammino?... E che sono io, che sono io fra tutte le donne che un
uomo può incontrare sulla terra?... (Il suo volto è rigato di lagrime.)
La signora Marnieri
(senza rispondere, scrolla lievemente il capo come per dire che
quelle parole non l'hanno convinta.) (Si asciuga gli occhi.) Addio,
signora.
Giulia
Addio.
La signora Marnieri
(dopo una breve esitazione, con un poco di voce tremante)... Non mi
permetterà di rivederla qualche volta?
Giulia
(tra l'oscura necessità di rifiutare e il bisogno istintivo di cedere, col
cuore che le rompe il petto, debolmente mormora:) Se lei lo vuole....
 La signora Marnieri
La ringrazio. (Guardandola con devota effusione, le stende la mano.)
Giulia
(glie la stringe, evitando quegli sguardi riconoscenti.)
La signora Marnieri
(trattenendo nella sua la mano di lei e stringendogliela più forte,
ancora con le lagrime che le vagano sulle pupille, quasi
interrogandola, fiatando appena, ripete:) La ringrazio. (Si distacca
penosamente, ed esce.)
Giulia
(stanca, trasognata, rapita come da una ineluttabile influenza
sovrumana, lentamente siede e resta immota guardando dinanzi a
sè un punto lontanissimo, con i grandi occhi estatici.)
(Passa qualche istante.)

SCENA VII.

GIULIA e GIUSEPPE.
Giuseppe
(tutto vestito a lutto, con l'abito abbottonato, portando in una mano
un cappello col velo nero, nell'altra, col braccio quasi penzoloni, il
piccolo mazzo di fiori, comparisce in fondo, compunto e austero.
Vedendo che Giulia non si accorge di lui, annunzia con voce poca e
grave:) Signora Giulia, la carrozza del Comitato è venuta.
Giulia
(ha un piccolo soprassalto. — Rabbrividisce.) (Pausa.) (La sua
fisonomia si muta.) (Ella cala la veletta sul viso e si leva.) Eccomi,
Giuseppe.... Sono pronta. (Quindi si avvia.)
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