Few women firing but many calling the shots in gangs, facilitating money, murder, mayhem
They may not be the ones pulling the trigger or bludgeoning those who dare test their authority. Still, women in Jamaica’s most organised crime syndicates play roles that are no less deadly, and heinous, and which continue to challenge law enforcement.
They operate under a different code; one usually buttressed by familial or intimate ties with Jamaica’s most ruthless. So, their loyalty is unshakeable, and so, too, is their silence. With perceived immunity from hassle by a mostly male constabulary, they operate without fear, oftentimes daring cops with impunity.
They don’t shed blood. Instead, according to a study launched by the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI), these women facilitate the bloodshed. They transport, hide, and take the fall for illegal weapons and ammunition; and, more importantly, are the business minds behind deadly organised gangs locally.
It is more than sounding alarms during patrols, blocking police fire during shootouts, or washing bloody clothes after murders. These ‘Mummas’ move the money, set up contract killings, and even keep notorious gunslingers in check. Backed by their close ties at the syndicates’ helm, they reportedly live lavish lifestyles from proceeds of crime and enjoy exemption from interrogation, or even jail time, knowing men in the syndicates are willing to take the fall for them.
Their roles are often overlooked, which CAPRI, in its study Hits and Misses: Women in Organised Crime, reference at the “invisibility paradox”, where these deadly “facilitators” are overlooked by law enforcement policy and operations, which are mostly targeted at males – particularly gang leaders, teenagers, and young adults, which police statistics suggests are the main perpetrators and victims of gang crimes locally.
“You have females who pull the trigger. You have females who lure unsuspecting victims to locations and they are killed. We have females who are involved in robberies, too. Sometimes when you look at them, they will appear as male, but when you check it out, they are females,” offered Deputy Superintendent Michelle Campbell, acting commanding officer for the Kingston East Police Division.
“They benefit from whatever robberies and crimes,” charged Campbell, adding that most times, it is the females who control the cash flow.
“This is not news; this has been happening a long time [now],” affirmed Campbell, though she and two other divisional heads scoffed at The Sunday Gleaner’s request for a list of wanted women last week.
Such is almost unheard of, they explained, mainly because, as the CAPRI study suggests, they enjoy intimate protection from the gang leaders, who go to great lengths to ensure their women are shielded from law enforcement. These women return the favour – sometimes willingly, sometimes because they are financially dependent and crippled by their economic and living situations.
FEW WOMEN IN CUSTODY
Campbell, who last month took the reins of Kingston Eastern, said sleuths currently have only three females in custody who they believe may have played “critical roles” in the case of a missing person and suspected murder. There is also another woman who is in custody for an illegal firearm, which police believe belonged to a known criminal with whom she was travelling.
“You have to understand, a man is not going to ‘rat’ out his woman. It is easier for the male to take the fall ... . He knows that when he is in jail, his ‘mums’ is going to be there. She will lock the thing and ensure everything is alright. She will make sure the kids are alright. She will make sure her man is not eating jail food, and she and the best lawyer will turn up at court for him,” Campbell said.
“You also have some females who, no matter what the police do, you won’t get anything out of them. Because they are not going to give up the lifestyles that they are used to,” continued Campbell, adding that such lifestyles are reflected in the grandiloquent supply visits by some women to station lockups.
According to the CAPRI, the study was aimed at assessing the roles of women in organised crime in Jamaica, making a distinction between traditional support roles and more direct roles in violent gangs. It was conducted in response to media and police reports that the number of women in organised crime was on the increase – an argument the data does not support, it said.
Consequently, CAPRI found that last year, only 19 women were arrested for gang-related offences, less than four per cent of the total 488 female arrests. Women also accounted for less than three per cent of violent crimes in the period; and in 2021, only two per cent of persons arrested for murder were women, a similar number for females reportedly involved in shootings.
Concurrently, in 2021, females made up 13 per cent of individuals imprisoned for forgery, fraud, embezzlement, and extortion; ten per cent for breaches of the Dangerous Drugs Act; nine per cent for offences related to murder or manslaughter; seven per cent for unlawful wounding/wounding with intent; two per cent for robbery with aggravation; and one per cent for illegal possession of a firearm/ammunition.
TRAFFICKING
Women also featured prominently in human trafficking crimes and crimes surrounding violence against children, although CAPRI’s study did not examine the nexus between sex crimes and organised crimes, nor the depth and implications of facilitatory crimes by women in Jamaica.
Data for many aspects of the study were limited, explained CAPRI’s director of research, Diana Thorburn, noting that “incarceration data is simply not enough to tell us whether women are involved in violent crimes or not”.
Nonetheless, CAPRI, as did the findings of a similar research paper, Female Participation in Major Crimes in Jamaica, by Jamaican researcher Paul Bourne, et-al recommended, among other things, that policymakers pay closer attention to female roles in organised crimes, that the government deploy more female police personnel in anti-gang operations to perform gender-sensitive searches, and also include women in land regularisation and development.
Bourne, in his study, explained that: “In Jamaica, a country with one of the highest crime rates globally, female participation in major and serious crimes is emerging as an area of growing concern. The epidemiology of female criminality involves examining the frequency, patterns, and correlation of female’s participation in serious crimes such as murder, rape, and robbery.”
Without such detailed analyses, however, police on the ground continue to tackle the challenges of female facilitators, some of whom have critical parts in some of the bloodiest multiple killings in gangland parishes such as Clarendon, where in Cherry Tree Lane, the island’s bloodiest multiple killing was recorded last August – a death and injury toll of eight and 10, respectively. Among the dead was a seven-year-old boy.
“For example, the lottery scam, the females are usually the ones who spend the money, hide the money, and are the persons who help to conceal weapons. We know this, but it is not anything that comes up on our radars for category one crimes,” offered one senior crime officer in that midisland police division.
“When we were having a lot of problems in Kingston Central, they (women) usually hold off the corners and give the signals to the guys, but in terms of their involvement, we are not necessarily finding anything supporting that as yet,” explained Superintendent Beresford Williams, head of the Kingston Central Police Division. “They tend to be the silent supporters, the recipients of the goodies. They are encouragers.”