Specific Measures Sought For Criminal Deportees
By Tameka Lundy

Caribbean leaders have decided to pursue specific arrangements with the governments of the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom for ex-offenders who have served time in foreign prisons and are repatriated to their Caribbean homelands upon their release.


CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, explained that the grouping wants a memoranda of understanding. This would be a critical step towards addressing some of the pervasive concerns that Caribbean countries have about the issue.

"[There is] the need for the development of an MOU with these countries that would include adequate notification, the ability of intended deportees to settle their affairs, especially long-time residents of these countries, the provision of complete dossiers including criminal antecedents and medical records where applicable, appropriate arrangements to reduce financial burdens on deported persons and the receiving countries and to seek to have the support for programmes designed to aid the rehabilitation and integration of deported persons in the region," Mr. Ingraham explained.

Mr. Ingraham disclosed the details at the conclusion of the 13th Special Meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government in Trinidad and Tobago over the weekend.

The matter of criminal deportees has been a bone of contention for Caribbean leaders who have been lobbying for the deporting states to at least provide support to the accepting countries for the resettlement of the ex-offenders.

The grave worry for The Bahamas and countries in this region is as these countries continue to accept more and more people who are expelled from foreign territories, there is little effort made to provide for their proper reintegration into the societies that are forced to accept them.

CARICOM leaders also decided that the proposed MOU would include details related to a mandatory requirement for the enforcement of monitoring orders for persons who are deported for specified major offences, the development of an information sharing protocol and collaboration on certain transition centres in each country where the deportees are sent. The centres would be set up to provide short-term refuge for deportees who do not have immediate shelter or familial support.

DEPORTEES IN

THE BAHAMAS

Between 1997 and 2007, The Bahamas accepted more than 700 criminal deportees, according to statistics from the Royal Bahamas Police Force.

In 2003, the largest number of 124 was received, those figures showed.

Between January and August 2007, 30 individuals were repatriated here after serving time abroad for various crimes.

Often overlooked by the wider society, though never fully discounted by the police, criminal deportees to The Bahamas are said to be committing a small fraction of crimes.

However, the crimes that they are committing are the most serious infractions of the law, according to a senior police official.

"From what I have seen there is a low percentage [of criminal deportees here committing crimes] but they are involved in very serious types of crimes," said Chief Superintendent of Police Glen Miller, head of the Central Detective Unit, in an earlier Bahama Journal interview.

"They have been involved in major drug trafficking, firearms trafficking and homicides and in some instances serious armed robberies but that’s been at a very low percentage."

RESEARCH

In making their decisions about the matter on the weekend, CARICOM leaders considered a report from Dr. Annmarie Barnes, chief technical director of the Jamaica Ministry of National Security.

She concluded that the mass deportation of criminal offenders to the Caribbean and Latin America constitutes one of the greatest threats to security in the region.

When Dr. Barnes testified at a US Congressional Hearing last year on Deportees in Latin America and the Caribbean, she indicated that while deportation may solve a few problems within the deporting country, the removal of criminal offenders to another geographical location does not protect the United States from further criminal actions by those persons.

"Indeed, the mass relocation of criminal offenders from relatively high security environments to less secure societies that are by definition more criminogenic, has merely shifted the responsibility for managing such persons to their country of birth," she said.

"By expanding the locale for criminal enterprise, deportation poses serious challenges not only to national security interests in receiving countries, but also to the management and control of security globally."

In an analysis of deportation data for Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, a recent CARICOM study found that almost 30,000 criminal offenders had been deported to those countries between 1990 and 2005, she disclosed.

The research found that over 17,000 had been deported for drug offences; almost 1,800 for possession of illegal firearms, and more than 600 for murder. The United States is responsible for more than 75 percent of all criminal deportations to the region, researchers found.

A report on crime and violence in the Caribbean region that was compiled through the efforts of the World Bank found that although the average Caribbean deportee is not involved in criminal activity, a minority may be causing serious problems, both by direct involvement in crime and by providing a perverse role model for youth.

The same report said between 1998 and 2004, the US alone deported 31,000 convicted criminals to the Caribbean.

According to details released from the Department of Homeland Security, if the current pace continues, there will likely be a 10 percent increase in the total number of criminal deportees from the United States at the end of the 2007 fiscal year over fiscal year 2006’s total of just under 200,000.

The U.S. deported 197,707 persons in FY 2006, statistics showed. It is estimated that 1.6 million adults and children have been separated from their spouses and parents because of the 1996 law that requires the mandatory deportation of persons who have served prison sentences.

Not everyone has endorsed the one strike policy that the U.S. has continued to adopt. For instance, the Council On Hemispheric Affairs [COHA] in a report made mention of the fact that rising crime rates in the Caribbean have often been directly linked to criminal deportees from the U.S. COHA is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax exempt research and information organization.

"Immediate transferal of criminals back to their home countries only leaves the door open for the creation of organized crime networks at home; many Caribbean nations have complained of such results as their nationals, who, having become hardened criminals, return after spending years in the U.S., bringing their skills and connections back to their home islands," the group said.

THE WAY FORWARD

The Bush administration provides $1 million for a programme in Haiti that helps Caribbean criminal deportees from the U.S. readjust to life in their native land. The programme emphasizes that those deported to Haiti are not security risks.

Tom Shannon, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said he hopes the programme can be expanded to Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and other Caribbean countries.

Dr. Barnes concluded that the massive relocation of criminal offenders from developed to developing nations, is a counter-security measure in a global world.

"If global concerns about security are to be universally respected, then the United States, the nation at the forefront of the charge to create a safer global community, should ensure that it does not engage in action that shifts the burden of maintaining security to countries least equipped to do so," she said.

"The nation-states of the Caribbean are relying upon this Congress of the United States of America to recognize that criminal deportation constitutes a real threat to the security of the region, and to take actions that remain true to this nation’s ideal of enhancing global security, and creating a just society for all mankind."

http://www.jonesbahamas.com/?c=45&a=16598

The UK, US, and Canada should have a base in international water and leave the deportees there if no country wants to accept them.