Violent Actors and Embedded Power: Exploring the Evolving Roles of Dons in Jamaica Damion

213 Pages·2012·1.49 MB·English

Violent Actors and Embedded Power: Exploring the Evolving Roles of Dons in Jamaica

Damion Keith Blake

Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy
In
Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical and Cultural Thought

Max O. Stephenson Jr. (Chair)
Karen M. Hult (Co-Chair)
Robert P. Stephens
Onwubiko B. Agozino

November 9, 2012
Blacksburg, VA

Keywords: Dons, Roles, Garrisons, Embeddedness, Governance

Copyright @ 2012 Damion K Blake
Violent Actors and Embedded Power: Exploring the Evolving Roles of Dons in Jamaica

Damion Keith Blake

ABSTRACT

The Jamaican don is a non-state actor who wields considerable power and control inside
that nation’s garrison communities. A don is a male figure, usually from the community
in which he plays a leadership role. Garrisons in Jamaica have often emerged as
neighborhoods that are don-ruled shadow versions of the official State. These are poor
inner city communities characterized by homogeneous and, in some cases, over-voting
patterns for one of Jamaica’s two major political parties: the Peoples National Party
(PNP) or the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP). This dissertation explores the major roles dons
played in Jamaican garrisons. It focused on one community in the downtown metro area
of one of the nation’s cities. Additionally, it investigated the factors that account for the
evolution of such roles performed by dons from the 1960s to the present. I used
governance theories and the concept of embeddedness as an analytic framework to
interpret the power and authority dons have in garrisons. Dons, as it turned out, perform
four central roles in garrisons: security/protection, social welfare, partisan mobilization
and law, order and conflict resolution via “jungle justice” measures. Different types of
dons perform alternate mixes of these roles. The case study described here led me to
develop a taxonomy of these informal community leaders by separating them into Mega,
Area and Street Dons. I argue overall that dons are embedded governing authorities in
Jamaican garrisons based on the socio-economic and political roles they carry out. By
examining the responsibilities of dons in Jamaica, this analysis contributes to the
literature on the activities of non-state criminal actors and their forms of influence on
governance processes. The study suggests that it may now be appropriate to re-think the
nature of governance and the actors we broadly assume are legitimate holders of power
and authority in developing nation contexts.
Dedication

To my parents, brothers and the people of Brown Villa, Jamaica.

iii
Acknowledgements

I would like especially to thank the chair and co-chair of my dissertation committee for
the dedicated support and guidance they provided throughout every stage of the research
process, from its design to completion. I also want to acknowledge the guidance and
support received from the other members of my advisory committee. The financial
support of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and the Open Society Foundation
(OS) enabled me to conduct six months of field research in Jamaica. I would like to thank
particularly the SSRC for awarding me a dissertation fellowship in its Drug Security and
Democracy (DSD) program. I am grateful also to the many Jamaicans who assisted me
in obtaining and scheduling interviews. Their support was invaluable.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1- Introduction: Dons: Despots of Jamaican Garrisons 1

Chapter 2- Literature Review: The Criminalization of the Jamaican State:
Power, Legitimacy and Criminal Actors 29

Chapter 3- Research Design: Research Design and Methods 60

Chapter 4- Data Findings Part I: Brown Villa: The Garrison Context 83

Chapter 5- Data Findings Part II: Don Roles: From Partisan Enforcers to
Embedded Governance Actors 114

Chapter 6- Conclusion: Re-thinking Governance and Dis-embedding
Garrison Dons 166

References: 190

Appendix A- Consent Form: 206

Appendix B- Examples of Interview Questions: 207

v
List of Figures and Tables

Figures:

1: Brown Villa Residents’ Perception of Community Challenges 2007 and 2011 92
2: Theme 1: Problems Facing Garrison Residents 100
3: Weapons used in murders 2011 110
4: Interviewees’ description of roles dons play in garrisons 115
5: Power structures in garrisons Pre & Post-1970s 143
6: Impact of drug and gun trafficking on roles of dons (1970s-2012) 150
7: Cocaine introduced in the United States by Corridor 1981-2001 152
8: Impact of the Gun-for-Drugs-Trade between Jamaica & Haiti 160
9: Interviewees perceptions of dons’ status in garrisons 180

Tables:

1.0: Interviewee list by VT number and Category 84
1.1: Age and Sex of Brown Villa Residents 2011 94
1.2: Major Public Safety Threats in Brown Villa 97
1.3: Murders by type, 2009-2011 109
1.4: Qualification/Training by gender in Brown Villa 2011 112
1.5: Level of Training/Qualification for Household Heads Brown Villa 2011 113
1.6: Dons’ Sources of Wealth and Weapons by Type 119
1.7: Gang-related Murders 129
1.8: Major Roles of Dons by Types 179

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

DONS:
DESPOTS OF JAMAICAN GARRISONS

Introduction

Since its independence in 1962, Jamaica’s democratic system of government and
governing has not had a reversal or collapse. The country’s democracy however, has been
dogged by rampant corruption (especially among the police), political and gang related
violence. The country’s political history reveals an unholy union between elected
officials and informal community leaders known as dons. The status and control dons
tend to have in Jamaican garrisons are broadly analogous to the power of a dictatorial
ruler.
Such informal community leaders, today typically have partisan ties, have benefitted
financially from the narcotics trade in the Americas, and on occasion have used the
material wealth they acquired thereby to provide socio-economic services to garrison
residents. A don has significant power based on his command of a gang and his access
and willingness to use guns and violence as a means of creating fear and acquiring
respect inside garrisons. The term ‘garrison’ was first used in the Jamaican context by
Carl Stone (1985) to describe inner city communities characterized by bounded political
partisan loyalties among residents for either the Jamaican Labor Party (JLP) or the
Peoples National Party (PNP). Violence of various sorts has long characterized these
communities.
To date, dons have been male and have usually hailed from the communities in which
they play governance roles. I did not read about or learn during interviews of any female
1
dons. This fact raises the important issue of masculinity and violence in Jamaica, but also
the wider Caribbean and Latin America region (Baird 2012; Chevannes, 2002; Moser and
Bronkhost, 1999). Boys and men in Jamaica especially in urban and some rural
communities are socialized differently from girls and women in the nation. Many
Jamaican boys are acculturated to the use of force and to the perceived significance of
exercising control over the home to “become men” (Chevannes, 2002).
The use of force and violence against women and other men are also features of the
male masculinization process in other Latin American and Caribbean countries. Jamaican
boys are allowed to go onto the streets and the “corner” to interact with other boys and
men who are considered dominant in their communities while girls are expected to stay
inside the home. On the streets and in the “yards”1 of Jamaican garrisons young boys and
men learn social codes of bravado and machismo. The don is often viewed as the
consummate male, the “real big man2”; he controls his gang, several women, has
financial power and demonstrates physical violence and prowess as a marker of his
hegemonic position. This background of masculinity and gender is important to attaining
a full understanding of who dons are, the status they have in garrisons and the roles they
perform in such communities.
During the first decade of Jamaica’s independence, 1962-1970, elected
representatives used dons as agents of political enforcement and mass mobilization inside
garrison communities (Sives, 2002). By the 1980s, however, the roles dons performed in

1A yard in Jamaica refers to the physical living space of a home(s). In some inner city and garrison communities,
several families share one yard.
2This phrase is used in Jamaica to refer to men considered to be dominant males on account of their sexual prowess,
financial strength and the respect they have among their peers and within their communities. The phrase is popular
among the lower middle and working class.
2
their neighborhoods changed and expanded beyond the realm of partisan politics. This
study investigates the multiple roles that different types of dons play today in Jamaica’s
garrison communities. It also develops a fresh interpretation of “who” dons are, how they
evolved over time and the different sources of funds they use to finance themselves and
the gangs they lead. I use the example of one Jamaican garrison community, Brown
Villa,3 to investigate the theoretical and empirical targets of this study.
The Jamaican don role has evolved over time and the functions these community
figures perform in garrisons symbolize how the state can lose its central authority and
legitimacy within localities. There is no single sort of don. Instead, there are different
types of dons, and they play different roles in the garrisons in which they are active. In a
Jamaica Gleaner article entitled “The origins and roles of Dons,” Rattary (2001), for
example, noted:
The word “Don” is of Spanish origin (1523). It is from the Latin 'dominus', which
means master or lord. When prefixed to the- Christian name, it becomes a title for a
Spanish nobleman, gentleman, and a person of consequence, or university professor.
We, however, are more familiar with the term as it refers to an Italian Mafia boss, a
respected, powerful leader in that (originally) Sicilian secret criminal society (Rattary,
2001).4

Garrisons in Jamaica have often emerged as don-ruled shadow versions of the official
State. These are shanty inner city communities characterized by homogeneous and, in
some cases, patterns of over-voting for one of Jamaica’s two major political parties, the
PNP and the JLP. Over-voting refers to fraudulent patterns of voting in which there is
more than a 100 percent voter turnout in a constituency; ballots sometimes are cast for
dead persons and one party tends to dominate electoral results, typically gaining more

3Brown Villa is a pseudonym used to protect the confidentiality of respondents I interviewed during the research for
this effort, conducted between August 1 and December 31, 2011 in Jamaica.
4 Retrieved from http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20011211/cleisure/cleisure2.html
3
than 70 percent of total votes reported. Garrisons, the sites of this phenomenon, are
characterized by governmental neglect, while at the same time containing populations
with deep partisan identities. These ghettoes, in the classic sense of that term, often
experience violence related to gang turf rivalries, partisan warfare and contests
concerning the dominance or relative status of a don or multiple dons. Many residents in
these communities live below the poverty line and experience economic and social
squalor.
International human rights watchdog agencies, such as Amnesty International,
consider Jamaica--like other countries in the Americas region including Honduras,
Colombia and Mexico--to be a high violence society in which a large percentage of crime
is linked to drug trafficking, gang wars and political violence. High homicide rates,
poverty, growing levels of inequality, high youth unemployment, judicial systems that
fail to work effectively and corrupt systems of law enforcement have paved the way for
non-state criminal actors to embed themselves within the nation’s garrison communities.
Homicide statistics from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNOC) place
Jamaica among the 10 top countries with the highest homicide rates per 100,000 people.5
Violence and crime related to drug trafficking, extortion rackets, human trafficking and a
gang culture that fuels turf warfare across neighborhoods has had a destabilizing impact
on democratic governance and the authority of the state. Indeed, in some instances, non-
state actors have overtaken local garrisons and developed independent spheres of
legitimacy, power and control. Non-state community actors are at the center of the high

5 See the UNOC 2010 report. It notes that Honduras had an 82.1 % homicide rate, Cote d ‘Ivoire (Ivory Coast) had a
56.9 % based on 2008 data, and Jamaica had a 52.1 % homicide rate. Taken from http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-
and-analysis/homicide.html
4