I recently saw the movie, "Chinatown" starring Jack Nicholson as Jake Gittes, a private investigator in 1930's Los Angeles. It's a great noir mystery with an excellent soundtrack, and Jack Nicholson is in it so that's a good enough reason to see it right there. In the movie, Gittes gets wrapped up in an investigation of an illegal business scheme revolving around water rights in southern California. As the case unfolds, it becomes apparent that the entire city is at the mercy of big business interests, a corrupt municipal system, and dirty cops.
Gittes, himself an ex police officer, used to work in the notorious Chinatown district of L.A. Throughout the movie, we learn that Jake became disgusted with the corruption he encountered there, and presumably left the force to become a private investigator. In fact, corruption among law enforcement is so pervasive in this part of L.A., that "Chinatown" becomes a byword for lawlessness and miscarriage of justice.
In one of the best lines in movie history, Jake's partner Walsh laments the intractable police dishonesty by saying,
"Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown."
The powerful are too powerful. The rich are too rich. This has been going on for far longer than you've been a part of it. There's nothing you can do. Forget it. It's Chinatown.
Anyone familiar with the developing world will be familiar with the pervasive corruption, bureaucracy and inefficiency of public services - particularly the police. But the problem for development agencies is, if you want to build up law enforcement in a country by strengthening the police, how will you prevent them from using their new power to abuse those they were meant to protect? In practice this is a legitimate concern. Many top level development agencies actually had prohibitions about giving aid to public law enforcement until very recently for this reason. Across parts of Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, and other areas, law enforcement exists as little more than armed gangs that extort the poor in their communities. Giving them aid money just seemed dangerous and counter productive to many NGO's. It's a problem that often seems too entrenched, too dangerous, too big to tackle.
When it came to law enforcement working on behalf of the poor, aid agencies were saying, in essence "Forget it, it's Chinatown."
But the problem is, no matter how much support is given to the poor, it won't effectively change anything until they are protected from exploitation. It doesn't matter how many wells you dig or how many micro loans you lend if a gang can come steal, rape, and destroy any advantage gained thereby.
That's what we are trying to change at IJM. The goal of our organization is to rescue thousands, protect millions, and prove that justice for the poor is possible. We want to prove that justice systems can change. By rescuing victims, and ensuring that traffickers are publicly brought to justice, we can prevent the cases of bonded labour, child prostitution, and human trafficking that exist on such a horrific scale. This can only be done by making local law enforcement function correctly. We want to transform malfunctioning justice systems to work for the poor, rather than against them, one case at a time.
I'm basically summarizing the premise of Gary Haugen's book, The Locust Effect. Gary Haugen is the founder of International Justice Mission, and his book explains in greater detail what we do at IJM and what I've alluded to here. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in helping the poor.
In "Chinatown" the bad guys and dirty cops of Los Angeles in the 1930's seemed too powerful and too entrenched to ever allow true justice to be done. There's not a lot of hope in the movie that things will ever be different. But the thing is, in real life, police in L.A. now are actually pretty good. L.A.P.D. isn't perfect for sure, but they are one of the most respected law enforcement organizations in the world today. They are well trained, well equipped, and generally relied upon in order to prevent rampant crime. In "The Locust Effect," Gary Haugen explains that at one time in history, police corruption in the U.S. was so bad, it was actually comparable to the law enforcement we see in Peru, Bangladesh, and many other countries in the developing world - but things got better. It took a long time and it was a big fight, but eventually, police became essentially reliable, helpful, and good at preventing and solving crime in the United States.
And if it could happen then, it can happen now.
IJM and organizations like it are proving that this kind of change is possible in the developing world. Malfunctioning law enforcement systems can be reformed. Justice is possible for the poor. And that's pretty exciting.
