We have started the year 2025 with the memories and realities of 2024 still fresh in our minds. Still, they must inform how we battle the monster going forward. Therefore, let’s have a look at what we know.

1) Jamaica is safer today than at any time in the past two decades.

In 2024 murders fell to 1,139. This was a 19 per cent decline compared to 1,404 in 2023, and a 6 per cent decline compared to 1,208 in 2015. Total major crimes (murders, shootings, rapes, break-ins, robberies) in 2024 were 14 per cent lower than in 2023, and 40 per cent lower than in 2015. The 4,037 major crimes total recorded in 2024 is the lowest since such breakdowns began to be reported in 2002. In fact, the 2024 total is actually 40 per cent lower than the 2002 total. See Table 1.

Now, there is no place in which police-recorded crimes ever completely reflect reality. However, I scour
Google regularly for crime data from all over the world, and no country has more up-to-date weekly crime stats than Jamaica. So I have no reason to consider our crime figures less accurate than anywhere else.

Furthermore, the 2024 computer and Internet and smartphone age numbers are surely far more efficiently compiled than in the 2002 paper and pen days. Plus, the much better relationship the police has with the public today likely means people are much more likely to report crimes than in the ‘beast man and Babylon’ bad old days.

Why then should we not believe the crime statistics which tell us that Jamaicans are far safer today than we have been at any time over the past two decades?

2) Jamaica is no longer the murder capital of the world and the Caribbean.

Two years ago Jamaica had the #1 murder rate in Caricom. It now ranks #7.

See Table 2.

Table 2.

3) Jamaica has the lowest crime victimisation and lowest fear factor of any country in Latin America with a population of over one million.

See Graph 1.

(https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/jamaica/ABJAM2023-Pulse-of-democracy-final-20240703.pdf)

Source: 2023 LAPOP report ‘Pulse of Democracy in Jamaica’. The LAPOP lab at Vanderbilt University is an international research center of excellence..

Though on the decline, Jamaica’s overall murder rate of 40 per 100,000 is still horribly high, over five times the world average, and over twice the Latin Anerican average.

However, former Police Commissioner Antony Anderson gave this context: “For the vast majority of Jamaicans not involved in the organised violence eco-system, the homicide rate plummets to 4.3 per 100,000. In 2022, Jamaica welcomed 4.15 million visitors, 75 per cent from the US. The overall crime rate against visitors was 2.6 per 100,000, and the homicide rate was 0.23 per 100,000.”

(https://jcf.gov.jm/bridging-the-gap-between-perception-reality-of-violence-in-jamaica/)

Graph 2.

4) Jamaica has the lowest incarceration to homicide ratio in the Caribbean and probably the world.

Incredibly, from 2011 to 2021 the murder rate increased from 42 to 55 per 100,000, while the incarceration rate declined from 161 to 130 per 100,000. So, while the murder rate went up by 31 per cent, the incarceration rate declined by 19 per cent! See Graph 2.

Locking up less criminals while murders were increasing was not only judicial insanity, but completely opposite to the wishes of the Jamaican majority, who have continually called for harsher penalties for violent crime.

(https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/jamaica.)

5) From 1962 to 2024 murders have grown at a rate of 1 per cent under Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) administrations, and at a rate of 13 per cent under People’s National Party (PNP) administrations.

See Table 3 and Graph 3.

Table 3.

Graph 3.

6) Horace Chang is statistically the most effective national security minister since 1989. The murder rate is down 33.2 per cent under his watch 2017-2024.

See Graph 4.

Graph 4.

7) Since 1989 the murder rate has declined under only three police commissioners:

* Owen Ellington (2010-2014), down 41 per cent

* Antony Anderson (2017-2023), down 18 per cent

* Kevin Blake (2024-2024), down 19 per cent

Kevin Blake and Owen Ellington are incidentally first cousins.

See Graph 5.

Graph 5.

Major General Antony Anderson (Jason Tulloch)

Police Commissioner Dr Kevin Blake.

Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington

Minister of National Security Dr Horace Chang inspects new Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) constables during the passing out parade and awards ceremony for 129 new members at National Police College of Jamaica in St Catherine. Photo: JIS

Kevin O’Brien Chang

Kevin O’Brien Chang is an entrepreneur and public commentator. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or kob.chang@fontanapharmacy.com.