NUMEROUS young males in several of Jamaica’s vulnerable communities canvassed in the just-released 2025 Citizens’ Rights, Roles, Responsibilities and Practices Survey use “bravado, shock statements, and exaggerated claims of violence or influence” as “emotional armour…masking fear and exhaustion” seemingly linked to constant aggression from gangs and members of the security forces.

According to surveyors, of the 305 individuals surveyed across the communities of Tivoli Gardens, Hannah Town, Mountain View, Waterhouse, Rose Town, Whitfield Town, McIntyre Villa/Dunkirk, Trench Town, August Town, and Denham Town, “youth contributions were among the most emotionally complex”.

“Many young men employed bravado, shock statements, and exaggerated claims of violence or influence. In Whitfield Town and McIntyre Villa, young men repeated ‘informer fi dead’ as a survival code, while others dismissed unpaid civic duty, ‘Mi nah do community work if mi nah get pay’,” facilitators said, noting that bravado often functioned as emotional armour.

According to researchers, in Tivoli Gardens, one youth explained, “every move yuh mek [you’re] watched — police, gang, everybody.” In Mountain View, another admitted, “If mi coulda talk and know mi safe, mi would.” In Whitfield Town, teenage boys bragged about carrying knives and guns to school, one claiming, “At my school, I tell di yute dem fi stop, dem haffi hear mi.” These statements they said, “reveal bravado as performance of authority, masking fear and exhaustion”.

The researchers said by contrast, these same youth “when respectfully engaged or mediated by older peers” offered nuanced insights into community justice systems, informal safety protocols, and the emotional toll of structural neglect.

According to the canvassers, in Whitfield Town, youth employed shock-value language that glorified gang culture, but said “these expressions were increasingly recognised as performative resistance rather than endorsement”. They also pointed out that in Mountain View, young participants “explicitly requested trauma-informed police training, demonstrating civic literacy and emotional intelligence”. They said in Trench Town, youth articulated cultural pride and survival strategies through music, while critiquing systemic discrimination in employment and policing.

“A few youths expressed a desire for change, saying they would report if safety and anonymity were guaranteed. Their voices highlight both vulnerability and potential. Youth are negotiating survival within systems that have repeatedly failed them but show signs that elder guidance has a mediating effect,” the study said.

Meanwhile, the researchers said “beyond violence, participants described exclusion rooted in address, poverty, disability, and identity”. In Hannah Town, for example, one woman recounted being denied employment at a call centre because buses did not run to her neighbourhood at night. She later secured a job only by using a friend’s address.

This practice the investigators said, “reinforced the perception that inner-city residents are excluded from opportunities by geography itself”.

They further said “employment discrimination was compounded by contractual exploitation” with workers describing “being rehired repeatedly on short-term contracts to avoid full-time benefits, undermining labour protections”.

The study said “fear of retaliation discouraged reporting to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, which was seen as ineffective”.

In the meantime, the data gatherers said gender and identity discrimination also surfaced.

“In Denham Town, women observed that flamboyantly gay male staff in pro-gay, United States-owned call centres were permitted to flout dress codes, while women were penalised for minor infractions. The speaker, a heterosexual woman, argued that even within rights-based organisations, men continued to enjoy greater latitude, visibility, and recognition, while women’s roles remained constrained and their rights unevenly enforced,” researchers found.

The 2025 Citizens’ Rights, Roles, Responsibilities and Practices Survey was conducted by The Mico University College with grant funding from Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ). JFJ said survey and qualitative data “reveal persistent exclusion based on address, poverty, and identity”.

“Employment discrimination, contractual exploitation, and uneven enforcement of inclusion policies reinforce perceptions that rights are privileges reserved for others” it said.

The entity has recommended the implementation of policy reviews and enforcement mechanisms to eliminate address-based employment discrimination which it found has a 22.3 per cent overall prevalence, peaking at 43.3 per cent in Trench Town). It has further batted for expanded access points for services (legal aid, shelters, job centres) in high-violation communities (Trench Town and Rose Town) while calling for the translation of national inclusion policies into lived access, with monitoring of outcomes in zone of special operations-designated and historically marginalised areas.