BREAD AND BUTTER

When the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair crafted the catchy slogan “crime and the root causes of crime” in his epochal 1997 election campaign, it was to underline the hypothesis that crime and violence was the effect of certain conditions, not the cause. By identifying crime as a symptom and not a disease, he broke with tradition.

Economic analysts Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel published a compelling endorsement of Blair’s assertion in their 2008 book entitled Economic Gangsters. As Fisman and Miguel analyzed data on conflicts worldwide, they discovered that armed violence is six times more likely to occur in poor countries (with per capital income of less than US$1,000) when compared to richer ones (with per capital income of more than $10,000).

But to further isolate armed conflict as a consequence and not a cause, the researchers studied the weather patterns of various countries on the African continent. When the rains failed to come, violence and strife were far more likely to occur; in fact, for every drop of 1% in economic output as measured by GDP, the probability of civil conflict increased by 2%. Some African countries were shown to have as much as a 50 percent greater risk of war during years of economic recession. The genocide in Rwanda, in retrospect, which took the lives of almost a million Tutsis in 1994 transpired the year after coffee prices fell by 50%. Coffee accounted for more than half of all economic activity in Rwanda at that time.

If drought and conflict are the two factors, conflict cannot possibly cause drought, therefore making it absolutely clear which one has a causal effect.

This week, a 14 year old student was choked and clubbed to death in an especially gruesome murder in Belize City. In 2008, the orgy of violence took the lives of 103 Belizeans. 75 have been killed so far this year. At 34 murders per 100,000 citizens, Belize’s crime rate is almost four times higher than that of Barbados. Belize’s economy is about a third the size of the Barbadian economy, even though our populations are roughly the same. The per capital income of a Belizean is less than half that of a Barbadian. The bread and butter factor looms large.

Although scholarship seems clear on poverty as the root cause of conflict, there remain many policy makers, especially in developing countries, who are convinced that the best method to fight crime is to bolster spending on the police and the army. This year, the Government of Belize will spend $97 million on the Ministry of National Security or 14 cents of every dollar allocated to recurrent expenditure. $97 million is $14 million more than our nation will spend to provide healthcare to all its citizens. National Security will cost more than all the other Ministries combined, except for education and debt servicing. Every year the security budget swells. Every year, the levels of violence ‘out-swell’ the budget increases.

A few years ago, a social study of the murder capital of Belize – Southside Belize City – was done in anticipation of a program of investment to be funded by Kuwait called the Southside Renewal Project. Though the findings were staggering, the report never received the merited examination. Unemployment on the Southside was found to be at 35 percent. More than half of children of high school age were not in the classroom. Half the nation’s murder victims died on the Southside. Seventy percent of housing units were sub-standard. Drug use, alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, single parent families were the norm. Bars, pawnshops and gaming salons outnumbered schools 25 to 1 on the Southside.

Unlike Belize City where an estimated 80,000 people are cramped in the swamps, the Northern Districts of Corozal and Orange Walk offer their farmers spacious highlands. More importantly, 7,000 families are tied directly to the sugar cane industry which generates average earnings of $100 million each year. For a family to own a farm, to operate a cane truck, to have shares in a sugar/energy factory offers a consequential sense of security. For the weekly wage earners in Belize City, who labor in major economic enterprises that are controlled by a few wealthy companies (i.e. telecommunications, banking, electricity, transportation, retail/wholesale, shipping, aviation, etc.) there is no such culture of ownership and participation. That culture of ownership exists on the small farms in the Cayo but is rare in Stann Creek. Toledo is afflicted by the general absence of industry and ownership. And every district has its version of the Southside: Skeleton Town in Corozal, Back A Town in Dangriga, San Mateo in Ambergris Caye, Hillview in Cayo. Again, the bread and butter factor looms large.

The time has come for a paradigm shift in the smoldering war against crime. To battle for safer communities is the right war but we have been fighting on the wrong front. Criminal justice and social justice are not twins. They are enemies. Batons are no substitute for bread. As the authors Fisman and Miguel point out in their brilliant study, “…once we recognize that seemingly random acts of violence have economic underpinnings then we can use our economic toolbox to address the problem.” The economic toolbox must construct the basic conditions for a humane existence including livable wages for parents, early childhood education, quality healthcare, relevant schooling, reliable access to electricity, water and telecommunications, descent housing, protection from unfair immigration, access to justice, and so on. People can only take greater ownership in the well being of a society if they are owners in the first place. There is a reason why nobody washes a rental car – they don’t own it!

This UDP government, after almost two years at the wheel, has been unable to articulate a coherent strategy to combat poverty and thus to curtail crime and violence. Blaming the past administration makes for political theatre and may even be effective in the near term. But the lid on violence cannot be contained without a novel, national strategy. Bread and butter is the cry on the streets. All indications so far suggest that 2013 will meet us with a bigger security budget and a bigger crime problem.

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