THE exuberance of Jamaica Observer columnist and criminologist Mr Jason McKay is surely understandable.

“I now believe in miracles,” an admiring Mr McKay declared in the latest Sunday edition as he hailed the dramatic reduction in murders in Jamaica.

End-of-year police figures showed 673 murders for 2025 — a near unbelievable 41 per cent reduction compared to the previous year. We are told this is the lowest murder tally in Jamaica since 1994.

According to Mr McKay, Jamaica is now “just three points shy of achieving a murder rate of 20 per 100,000”, which he tells us is the “Pan American” average.

Police Commissioner Dr Kevin Blake has spoken at length on the reasons for the extraordinary reduction of not just murders but wider crime figures. Improved intelligence-led policing, greater focus on gangs, “enhanced firearms interdiction”, commitment of police personnel, and sustained increased support by the State and wider society are among the factors he cited.

We have said in this space as recently as last Friday that a major contributory factor has been improved relationships and trust between citizenry and police. That’s been largely nurtured, we believe, by proactive, empathetic, police-driven social improvement projects at local and divisional levels. In many more communities than previously, police and residents can now “reason”.

And we believe the toxic “informer fi dead” culture which hindered the crime fight — while still with us — is no longer as prevalent as used to be the case.

If all of the above can be maintained, Mr McKay’s dream of fewer than 600 murders in 2026 will surely be attainable. However, all should recognise that will become very difficult to achieve, if not impossible, should we continue to have stories such as that which led the January 2 edition of this newspaper.

‘Anguish & Anger’ read the headline of the article which told the story of four-year-old Romain Bowman shot dead in bed allegedly by members of the security forces during an operation in Montego Bay.

We are told that two men were pronounced dead at hospital while a 68-year-old woman was also injured. Angry, grieving residents made it very clear they thought the behaviour of the security forces were crude, cruel and highly irresponsible.

We await the results of the relevant investigations.

But it can’t be missed that the New Year’s Day shooting came on the heels of a year in which there was said to be an unprecedentedly high, 311 fatal shootings by the security forces. That’s compared to 189 reportedly killed by the security forces in 2024.

Inevitably, the ongoing complaint by oversight investigative body Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom) about failure of the security forces to use body-worn cameras on operations comes to mind.

We have heard reasons from Dr Blake and the National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang as to why body-worn cameras are not yet operational. It seems to us, though, that time is fast running out for those excuses to remain credible.

We believe that, by whatever means necessary, body-worn cameras and related measures to ensure greater accountability should become routine at the soonest possible time.

Whatever the hindrances are should be addressed with urgency. That’s how security force personnel will be more readily protected from malicious, false allegations. And that will go a far way in furtherance of public trust of the security forces in our view.

Let’s get to it.