Owen 'Father Fowl' Clarke, reputed millionaire, cocaine-dealing leader of the British Link-up crew, who was described by the judge who sentenced him as one of the most dangerous men in England.There was Vivian Blake who ran the Shower Posse in the States during the 1980s and 1990s with a three-tiered organisational structure that the Mafia would have been proud of. In fact, the name 'don' (a Spanish term denoting rank and authority) draws on the idea of the mafia don. Early dons, were Claudius 'Claudie' Massop and Aston 'Bucky' Marshall who came to prominence in the 1970s as a result of the birth of political garrisons and signalled don-man influence on the Jamaican voters.Scott. was found in a big plastic bag buried near a tree What is common among most dons is that they all become extremely wealthy, by international standards, and have a major influence on our culture. Remember Donald "Zekes" Phipps? Recall the millions in cash he had lying around when the police raided his home? Recall the lockdown and barricading of downtown Kingston shops and the riots that started hours after his arrest by his supporters? Riots happened after the murder of the alleged head of the One Order Gang, Andrew 'Bun Man' Hope. Common, too, is the fact that most dons die violently.
"The dons, in short, have carved out small fiefdoms for themselves where they can pretty much operate with impunity. As such, they post a more serious challenge to the sovereignty of the Jamaican state than any foreign power ever did." (Charles Price, Urban Anthropology & Studies of Cultural Systems & World Economic Development, 2003).And while dons are known to provide social welfare for members of their community, they have, too, the reputation of being ruthless against those who act against them. Posse members are known for ritualised killings of members who "rip off" profits on drugs. The killing ritual usually involves the shooting of the individual five times; four to the chest and one to the head. Other ritual violent acts have included the use of laundry irons, chainsaws, hammer and nails and butcher's knives.Posse members have little regard for public safety or human life. As part of their code, extreme violence is directed at anyone they feel has disrespected them or is in their way.The last line alone makes me wonder about the vicious weekend killing of 11-year-old Aakim Scott, whose sodomised and dismembered body - arms legs and head separated from the torso, torso cut in two - was found in a big plastic bag buried near a tree. Five teenagers have been held in connection with the death after one of them produced a cellphone belonging to Aakim. I wonder if Aakim, in his childhood innocence, 'disrespected' any one of these teenaged boys.

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Men from the One Order gang are warring over extortion money ... It started about a week-and-a half ago when a group of men from the gang went and collected money from the sites without informing the other members," an officer from the St Catherine North Division explained. One high-ranking member of the gang denied the claims when contacted yesterday. "No man! Nuttin like that. Wi nuh have no internal thing a gwaan, di whole a wi good," he stated simply. However, the St. Catherine North police have linked at least two recent incidents to the squabble, the latest being the murder of a carpenter on Sunday. Vivian Douglas, 43, of Tredegar Park in the parish, was shot dead on Sunday in a section of that community. Police say about 8 a.m., Douglas was attacked by a group of gunmen as he walked through a dirt track on his way to a hardware store. The men opened fire, killing him on the spot. The police say Douglas was employed to one of the work sites from which the gang collected extortion fees. They believe he was murdered because he was close to the set of gang members who are said to have collected money from the site.

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In January 2005, Gerald "Bogle" Levy, an iconic Jamaican dancer, was shot dead; the posse of John Hype, a rival dancer affiliated with Beenie Man, was suspected. Controversy soon settled on the Alliance, a crew of ferocious DJs led by "the Warlord," Bounty Killer. When slick-talking DJ Vybz Kartel left the Alliance in late 2006, he feuded with the posse's remaining members, especially the rising superstar of the group, Mavado, whose most famous song, on his 2007 album Gangsta for Life, is about marrow flying and bodies being sent "to the grave park." The beef between Mavado and Kartel produced some wickedly biting tracks—and, allegedly, several high-profile shootings in Kingston. Then, in February, after Jamaican tabloids ran a photograph of Kartel and another artist seemingly modeling a gun collection, Operation Kingfish—the Jamaica Constabulary Force's gang-dismantling task force—requested an interview with the artists, who'd been unleashing lyrical ire at another Alliance DJ: Busy Signal."Yes, every now and again, fans that's following me and fans that's following another artist have a quarrel," Busy Signal acknowledges to me during an interview in a Kingston studio. "But at the end of the day, you don't have a death—a blood violence—because of music and because of followers." Sporting camouflage pants and a matching cap, the baby-faced 25-year-old—whose album Loaded hits stores in September—smiles earnestly when asked if dancehall could ever produce its own Biggie-and-Tupac tragedy. "Me nah think so." Pause. "Well, it could happen—it's not impossible." Pause again. "We do need to take more responsibility for our actions."
At Sumfest last month, Bounty Killer blasted longtime rival Beenie Man throughout his performance, but Beenie, onstage, laughed it off and kept on dancing. And last year, Mavado and Kartel took a page from hip-hop's PR book and staged a press conference to formally end the beef between them. (Think 50 Cent and the Game, in patois). Mavado, 27, never quite believed the drama would reach tragic proportions because, as he tells me: "Me nah inna de dead thing!" But Biggie, Tupac, Jam Master Jay, and plenty of other hip-hop stars initially weren't, either.February 2008 was officially declared Reggae Month, and newspaper editorialists seized the opportunity: "The dominant trend in dancehall represents a betrayal of reggae; the tragic case of the child doing violence to his mother," fumed Ian Boyne in the Jamaica Gleaner. Historian Kevin O'Brien Chang followed suit in the same newspaper, lamenting the "dancehallisation of Jamaica" and asserting: "We are already about as violent as a state can get without descending into actual warfare."Dancehall reggae is taking the heat. Not that Jamaica's resplendently lewd and crude export ever stops courting controversy—a lyrical bounty of violence and slackness, not to mention sporadic yet egregious forays into homophobia, make it ever-ready for reproach. But for months, the backlash has intensified. As gun-talking dancehall stars escalated beefs with each other, the Jamaican government began beefing with them, performing weapons raids at concerts and selectively enforcing the Noise Abatement Act, which holds parties and other public events to strict curfews. Meanwhile, media pundits went into attack mode, blaming dancehall for Jamaica's record-level murder rate and epidemic of violence. Climactically, Red Stripe, after a peaceful seven-year partnership, nixed its sponsorship of Reggae Sumfest, the premier festival held every July in Montego Bay.So, in time for the genre's warm-weather close-up—on American airwaves, at the West Indian Day Parade on Labor Day, and, especially, at the premier Irie Jamboree show in Queens on August 31—I humbly offer five bits of advice to the dancehall massive: artists, listeners, critics. This wisdom comes not from me but from dancehall's close relative, which has been there and done that, enduring many a beating from pundits and cultural gatekeepers yet still maturing into a multibillion-dollar industry: hip-hop.Beef has been a staple of the reggae diet since the '50s, when legendary sound-system pioneer and proud gunslinger Duke Reid went viciously sound-to-sound with Studio One's Coxsone Dodd. And while dancehall feuds, from Super Cat vs. Shabba Ranks to Bounty Killer vs. Beenie Man, were once entirely lyrical, that's no longer always true.

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Jamaica Police are reporting that a significant dent has been made in the number of drug mule gangs smuggling narcotics out of the country.
Statistics from the Narcotics Division show that the number of drug mules arrested last year fell by 19 per cent when compared with the figure for 2006.
"Throughout 2007 we arrested a total of 5,496 persons for drugs, a significant reduction from the 6,793 persons arrested in 2006," Acting Assistant Commissioner of Police, Carlton Wilson disclosed.
The Acting ACP, who heads the Narcotics Division, pointed out that of the persons arrested, 5,257 were Jamaicans, with 4,927 being males and 330 females. Foreign males and females accounted for 174 and 65 arrests, respectively. Britons accounted for 119, Americans 51 and Canadians 22.
According to Wilson, of the 6,793 drug mules arrested in 2006, 6,039 were Jamaican males and 403 were females. Foreign males accounted for 257 and females 94.
Meanwhile, he explained that 171 persons were arrested at the Norman Manley International Airport and 220 persons at the Donald Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay last year. Of those arrests, 121 persons were destined for the United Kingdom, 17 for Canada, 21 for the USA and 17 for Curacao.
"Drug users are all across the social spectrum of the country and they use all sorts of means to smuggle the drugs. These include body packing, swallowing, storing in commercial goods, appliances and wood carvings, and in one instance last year, jacuzzis," Wilson pointed out.
He further noted that the drug mules ranged between the very young and the very old people, who are trying to deceive through their age. "[You find] people who are in wheelchairs, people over 70 years old, people who are blind, you find them packed with drugs going out of the country from time to time," he said.

Wilson appealed to drug mules and other persons involved in the drug trade to desist. "It is very damaging to your body and you need to look around and see what it has done to your colleagues and other people. You can pay visits to the rehabilitation centres, speak to people who are actually involved to get the stories first hand," he said.

"It is totally destructive. If you want to continue a normal, good life, desist from doing drugs," he warned.

The Narcotics Division has a mandate to report on the eradication, interdiction and demand reduction of drugs throughout the country.

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