Page 84 - Social Norms Survey

According to some, the police will misinterpret friendship groups and say they are gangs.

The Granville men say you may have a group of, say, eight young men who have been
friends from they were very young: “We a grow together from we a likkle pikney, we a

walk together. Dem go have it fi seh a gang we a form or inna a gang, yuh zimme?” They
do not hide that some may be involved in illegality: “A nuh no gang ting. Yuh friend dem

will probably inna certain illicit activity.” What they are saying is that just because they
move together does not mean all of them form a gang, organized together to commit

crime. They move together because they have been friends ever since they were young.
In their minds, “No yute nuh join no gang, dem just live inna community. Police label di

community an seh gang in deh.”

The three youth from Russia spoke in a similar way in that they said not all gang members
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were “bad”: “They don’t have to be like bad or anything to join a gang.” The facilitator

asks: “So why him woulda join the gang, if him nuh bad?” The young man laughs: “You
can join a gang if you feel left out—a gang nuh haffi be about violence, enuh. It can be

like the three of we right yah so now, juss come together. An him might want a money
an, yuh nuh, him juss start rob people but then you seh we a rob people…yuh nuh haffi

rob people. You join the gang becaas yuh feel lonely.” So you are complicit in the sense
that you know of illegality but do not report it to the police, but you do not choose to be

involved in illegality yourself. That was not the reason you joined the gang; you joined it for
the fellowship and because you liked the company.

There is
widespread Police
cynicism, The students were not asked any direct questions about the police,

mistrust and except at the end when they were grouped with parents and
disregard for teachers. However, police were mentioned spontaneously in a
the rule of negative light by both genders in relation to extra judicial killings;
law—Distrust linking with “bad men,” especially scammers; informing on persons
of police who gave them information; abusing their power, like a policeman

and of whose bullet caught a baby when he was trying to kill a dog; and
politicians
firing guns in the air at parties and at New Year. One girl, who along
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45 Note that one did not want to say he was from Russia. The CSJP head of the Westmoreland Office explained that
Great George Street, which runs through the centre of Savanna-la-Mar divides Russia down the middle. Some on one
side say that their community, usually the quieter side, is not Russia.
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