garrison

English Definition

A de facto autonomous district controlled by a don and the don's armed gang, typically loyal to a political party; a favela; a slum.

Etymology

• (Semantic shift of English garrison.)

Examples

• "Di yute dem nuh stop buss dem matic an' block road inna di garrison."

  The young men are constantly firing their semi-automatic rifles and blocking streets in the gang-controlled slums.

• "“The gang structure was deliberately organized during the seventies to defend partisan poltiical turf. Whole sections of the capital city of Kingston and other large towns became what are called "garrison" communities. A garrison community is a poor, inner city area sometimes naturally divided by a geographic item such as an open drainage sewer (called "gully" in Jamaica e.g. "McGregor Gully") or sometimes arbitrarily. […]”"