JAMAICA’S academics appear unimpressed by the decrease in murders this year, with some arguing that the accompanying increase in rapes suggested no change in the tendency toward violent behaviour.

Police blotters show that 844 people were murdered between January and August this year, compared with 1,125 over the same period last year, a drop of 25 per cent.

But as the killers eased up on the brakes, the rapists have accelerated their dastardly activities, with the number of rapes rising to 860 compared with 746, representing a 15.3 per cent increase in the corresponding period.

In the search for suggestions as to why murders have trailed off, criminologist Professor Bernard Headley argues that the figures could simply be reflecting a fall in the number of dead bodies rather than a decrease in “homicidal intent”.

“I am not ready to say, based on what the police are telling us, that this means any dramatic shift or change in violent patterns or behaviour in the country,” Bernard says.

“We could be witnessing, taking this (the statistics) to be true, that people are getting to doctors faster and so they are not dying from homicidal intent,” he tells the Sunday Observer.

“If you ask the UWI hospital, they (will) tell you how many millions of dollars they are spending to respond to emergency care on Friday and Saturday nights,” adds Headley who lectures at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona.

Headley says he would have “to see some sort of reduction in the cases of homicidal intent before concluding there is a change in violence”.

Anthropologist Herbert Gayle believes that the murder statistics should not be looked at in isolation from the rape statistics.

“…I am certain the majority of rapes we have here is related to gang feud…” he says. “Women are always going to be used by men in gang feud. It means therefore that what you are having (even) if you see the murder rate going down, is the same pattern.”

Further, Gayle argues that until the statistics reflected a significant reduction in violent crime, it was not worth examining.

“If rape goes down and all of these things connected to gang warfare go down with it, then I am going to begin to look through and see (what is happening). If I see data that says the murder rate has gone down like 40 per cent in a single year, then I will look,” he says. “If it is something like 15, 20 per cent, it is not worth looking at. That is the point. (Otherwise), if you take any two, three years, it goes up and down.”

Gayle, who specialises in urban anthropology, also suggests that a lot will depend, in Spanish Town for example, on what is happening between gangs or warring factions.

He calls for strategies to curtail the appeal of criminal activity for young men, saying: “What we need are long-term strategies, like full education for inner-city boys to dry up the pool that creates this mayhem. Until I see those long-term strategies, I will not have a discussion on a reduction in violent crime.”

Even so, Gayle was sceptical about the rape statistics, suggesting that the fact of an increase in the reported cases of rape did not necessarily mean an increase in rape.

“Somebody has put a system in place that is making women a little more comfortable in reporting rape,” the anthropologist says.

Headley agrees.

“I suspect that …women have become more empowered. They are not accepting the kinds of abuses that have been passed… They are more willing to come forth and report these things,” he says.

Sociologist Dr Orville Taylor says that while it was perhaps early days yet to do any sort of in-depth analysis, there were factors that could well be at work, impacting the statistics – provided they can be taken at face value.

For one thing, there is the perception of prosperity, though it may be too early to establish a relationship between the reduction in murders and the reported improvement in the island’s economy since the start of the year.

“It is too early to assume that there is any direct economic relationship. For you to see any positive impact of economic growth, you would need somewhere around 10 per cent (growth) and not over a year or two-year period. I can’t imagine anything before three to four years,” Taylor reasons.

“However, there is the perception of prosperity that people have not focused on too much, but which is an important factor. I think it is even more important than actual growth.”

Taylor cautions against discounting the “Portia factor”.

“Don’t discard this notion of what (Prime Minister) Portia Simpson Miller is seen as. She is seen as a beacon of hope for a lot of people. She has always been grassroots. So the feeling that comes from the masses is that it could be our time,” he says.

“And hope, that is something that is not treated very tangibly by the economists, but it is one of the variables that we can talk about. We, as sociologists, focus on phenomenology, which is the feeling and ideas of people about what is.”

The UWI lecturer also credits the work of the police, noting they had nabbed several gang leaders, putting a damper on the activities of their gangs, and brought to justice a number of drug kingpins.

“It would be disingenuous to deny this. We have King Fish and a number of improvements in their intelligence gathering and overall policing,” he insists.

The police, for their part, argue that while it was perhaps a little early for detailed examination, there are, undoubtedly, factors at work impacting the statistics, not least of which is increased public support.

“I have consistently been saying that it (the reduction in murders) is to be attributed to a number of factors – improved police investigative tactics, improved intelligence gathering, greater support from the public. We find that the public is supporting us in terms of information,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Charles Scarlett, who has responsibility for intelligence, tells the Sunday Observer.

He acknowledges that homicides are still high but says the decline in the murder statistics this year was a step in the right direction.

“…We are not patting ourselves on the back (yet). We know that we must continue to work hard. It is a long, hard battle but we have the resilience, we have the focus and the leadership. We feel that it is a sustainable path that we are on,” he says.

“When you can secure a 23 or 24 per cent reduction in homicides, it translates into 300 lives saved. It is a step in the right direction. We have started a process that we feel is going to be a long, hard journey but importantly the journey has started in a very positive way. We share the concern that murders are still too high but we don’t share the scepticism. Let’s watch it,” an upbeat Scarlett adds.

On the disparity between the statistics for murder and rape, Scarlett believes such incidents and how the society treated with them are not entirely a police matter.

“Investigative work must continue. The community is going to have to chip in. Usually, the victims of carnal abuse (and rape) are young females within the home who are abused by relatives or friends of relatives. A purely policing approach won’t work in this case,” he argues.

williamsp@jamaicaobserver.com