Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Jamaica.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Jamaica. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Jamaica U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/jamaica/
[accessed 26 July
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT The constitution
prohibits such practices, although there is no definition of torture in the
law. There were allegations of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or
punishment of individuals in police custody. The Independent Commission of
Investigations (INDECOM) investigated reports of alleged abuse committed by
police and prison officials. The majority of reports to INDECOM described
excessive physical force in restraint, intimidation, and restricted access to
medical treatment. Representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
expressed concern regarding underreporting by victims, particularly among the
vulnerable or persons with mental disabilities. Rapes were
occasionally perpetrated by security forces. In July, Correctional Officer
Gavin Wynter was arrested and charged with rape
after he reportedly sexually assaulted a woman at the Tower Street Adult
Correctional Center in Kingston. As of October the case had not been tried. INDECOM investigated
actions by members of the security forces and other agents of the state that
resulted in death, injury, or the abuse of civil rights. When appropriate,
INDECOM forwarded cases to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions
for agents to make an arrest. INDECOM remained one of the few external and
independent oversight commissions that monitored security forces, but
reported it was unable to investigate each case thoroughly due to manpower
limitations and significant delays by police in conducting identification
parades of suspects. PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS Conditions in
prisons and detention facilities were harsh and life threatening due to gross
overcrowding, physical abuse, limited food, poor sanitary conditions, inadequate
medical care, and poor administration. Physical
Conditions: Correctional facilities were significantly overcrowded. At times
cells in the maximum-security facility at Tower Street held 200 percent of
the intended capacity. Cells were very dark and dirty, with poor bathroom and
toilet facilities and limited ventilation. Jamaica: Amnesty
International supporters take half a million actions to end impunity for
unlawful police killings Erika Guevara-Rosas,
Americas Director, Amnesty International AI, 15 March 2018 [accessed 5 January
2019] “Tens of thousands
of activists from as far afield as Sweden, Taiwan and Côte d’Ivoire have sent
a clear message to Prime Minister Holness that the
deeply troubling wave of killings by Jamaican police cannot continue to go
unpunished,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, director of Amnesty International in
the Americas. In 2017, Jamaican
law enforcement officers killed 168 people, an average of three people a week
in a nation of 2.8 million. Over the past decade only a handful of police
have been convicted for such killings. A Special Coroner’s
Court was established in 2011 to conduct inquests into killings by police and
determine their lawfulness, but the court has built up a long backlog of
cases due to its insufficient annual budget, which covers the cost of just
one judge and a nominal staff. Freedom House
Country Report 2018 Edition https://freedomhouse.org/country/jamaica/freedom-world/2018 [accessed 17 May
2020] F3. IS THERE
PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR
AND INSURGENCIES? Killings by police
remain a serious problem in Jamaica. According to the Independent Commission
of Investigations (INDECOM), 168 individuals were killed by security
personnel in 2017. A Commission of
Inquiry in 2016 submitted a report on the state of emergency declared in 2010
in response to violence in the Tivoli Gardens neighborhood of Kingston, in
which more than 70 civilians were killed in an operation aimed at arresting
an alleged drug trafficker. The report found that security forces had acted
disproportionately, and recommended that the government apologize for the
event and provide victims with compensation and counseling services; the
government issued an apology and provided some compensation to relatives of
those killed in December 2017. However, the JCF in August 2017 issued its own
report on the raid, which cleared members of wrongdoing and questioned the
integrity of the earlier report. Waiting in Vain -
Jamaica: Unlawful police killings and relatives' long struggle for justice Amnesty International
AI, 23 November 2016, Index number: AMR 38/5092/2016 www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr38/5092/2016/en/ Download Report at www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/AMR3850922016ENGLISH.PDF [accessed 5 January
2019] For decades,
Jamaican communities, especially those in disenfranchised inner city neighbourhoods, have been scarred by an epidemic of unlawful
killings by police. This report finds that, although the number of killings
by police has fallen in the past two years, the way the police operate and
unlawfully kill remains largely unchanged. The vast majority of victims are
young men and teenagers. The manner of their deaths and the failure of the
state to bring those responsible to justice have a profound and lasting
impact on their loved ones. AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL From an old article -- URL not available Article was
published sometime prior to 2015 POLICE AND SECURITY - The number of
people killed by police fell in 2012 as compared with 2011, but remained
worryingly high. Several people were killed in controversial circumstances. Following public
outrage at the killings of 21 people by police in just six days at the
beginning of March, the Minister of National Security announced that a review
of the policy on police use of force would be undertaken and that the
government would hold “the Commissioner of Police and the High Command
accountable for a reduction in the level of Police fatal shootings”. However,
by the end of the year no information had been made available about how this
would be implemented. In July, three
soldiers were charged with the murder of Keith Clarke in his home during the first
week of the 2010 state of emergency. In spite of repeated promises, the
Public Defender failed to submit a report to Parliament with the findings of
his investigation into allegations of human rights violations, including
unlawful killings, during the state of emergency. The government stated that
the decision on whether to appoint an independent commission of inquiry about
what happened would depend on the results of the Public Defender’s
investigation. In its report to
Parliament in June, the Independent Commission of Investigations into abuses
by the security forces (INDECOM) identified collusion among members of the
security forces, wearing masks and balaclavas during operations, and delays
in obtaining forensic evidence as major challenges in the investigations.
Following several judicial challenges brought by the police against INDECOM,
a review of the legislation was initiated with the aim of clarifying
INDECOM’s powers and mandate. In October, the
Minister of National Security announced that the government intended to
dismantle the committee overseeing the implementation of police reform. Civil
society organizations criticized this decision. Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For current
articles:: Search Amnesty
International Website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=jamaica+torture&ref=&year=&lang=en&adv=1&sort=relevance [accessed 5 January 2019] Scroll
Down ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 2 Civil Liberties: 3 Status: Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/jamaica [accessed 2 February
2013] LONG
URL ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 13 May
2020] Despite government efforts
to improve penal conditions, a mounting backlog of cases and a shortage of
court staff at all levels continue to undermine the judicial system, which is
slow and inefficient, particularly in addressing police abuses and violence
in prisons. In April 2008, Amnesty International reported that 272 civilians
had been killed by the police during the preceding year, but that punishment
of negligent officers was rare given the persistent culture of impunity.
Although there has been some willingness by authorities to charge police for
extrajudicial killings, the system for investigating such abuse lacks
personnel to pursue cases, protect crime-scene evidence, take statements from
officers in a timely manner, and conduct adequate autopsies of victims. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, March 8, 2006 www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61733.htm [accessed 2 February
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61733.htm [accessed 4 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – Although the law prohibits
such practices, reports of physical abuse of prisoners by guards continued,
despite efforts by the government to remove abusive guards and improve
procedures. On August 9, the Department of Correctional Services announced
that it had discharged 16 correctional officers for misconduct. At year's end
the department, in conjunction with the police, was investigating alleged
criminal activities of the fired correctional officers, including trafficking
of contraband, abuse of inmates, missing ammunition, and assisting with
prison escapes. A former prison
doctor for the St. Catherine Adult Correction Center in Spanish Town publicly
alleged at a St. Catherine parish council meeting and in a letter to the
commissioner of corrections that mass rapes, particularly of mentally ill
inmates and inmates serving time for nonviolent offenses, occurred at the
prison during the year. The doctor also alleged that prison guards and some
inmates were involved in "renting out" the victims for sex with
other inmates. The Ministry of National Security agreed to investigate the
allegations. On February 17, the
Supreme Court ordered the government to pay $50 thousand (J$3 million) in
damages for the "oppressive and unconstitutional" conduct by a
policeman who shot and injured 36-year-old electrician Esrick
Morgan in 1998. On March 9, a
Supreme Court judge, in assessing damages against the government, described
the conduct of a policeman who gave a prisoner a knife to wound another while
in custody as "outrageous." The injured man was awarded $20
thousand (J$1.2 million) with interest in damages. There were no
developments in the case of six police officers accused of raping a
prostitute in Negril, Westmoreland in March 2004. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
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ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, " Torture by Police, Forced
Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st
Century- Jamaica", http://gvnet.com/torture/Jamaica.htm, [accessed
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