At the beginning of 2026 the statistics regarding murders in 2025 were released for all to see. They indicated a significant fall in murders of 52 per cent and a total figure of 673 murders for the period ending December 2025. This represents the lowest number recorded since 1994, when the figure was 690, and a 31 per cent reduction over 2024. This decline has been attributed by the police and the Government to intensified policing strategies, targeted operations, and increased intelligence-driven interventions.

At the same time, the figure for citizens killed at the hands of the police was 311. This represents a 65 per cent increase in police fatal shootings, and the highest since the Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom) was established. As of March 18, 2026, there have been 72 police killings compared with 68 for the corresponding period in 2025.

In a nation in which the high level of murders and other manifestations of crime and violence are at the top of the list of concerns, the release of these statistics is important. At the same time, living in a world in which many people receive their information by sound bites from various media, and are impatient about giving attention to anything that requires more than a fleeting pause, the reality is that statistics by themselves are not the most helpful without further investigation and engagement.

Whether on the basis of a fleeting glance or deep engagement of the statistics, there is no doubt that the reduction in the statistics related to murders is cause for celebration. Undoubtedly, improvements in policing strategies would have contributed to the reduction in murders, nevertheless the nation has every right to demand transparency and accountability regarding the discharge of the duties of the police and the exercise of the authority vested in them. While there is a culture within Jamaica that seems to promote the notion that to demand of public officers and institutions transparency and accountability is infra dig and an inappropriate questioning of their integrity. The point is, however, that all public servants and institutions are not independent entities, and for which reason monitoring institutions like Indecom, the office of the auditor general, civil society groups, and a system of democratic elections exist.

The statistics related to police killings must raise questions for people of a society that is concerned with the pursuit of equity and justice for all its citizens, and especially so when it is apparent that the statistics over the last two years and into the current one indicate a spiralling trend. As should be apparent from the operation of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), it is not enough to assume or to pronounce that the leaders and institutions of the State will exercise appropriate oversight on our behalf, as the modus operandi of the officers of the State may be in accordance with the policies of the State authorities.

For many Jamaicans the only statistics that matter are those indicating a reduction in the number of murders at the hands of citizens at the hands of accused criminals, as it creates a positive climate for business and investment and make people feel safe. It becomes even more palatable when a statistic is attached to the difference between actual murders committed in 2025 and what theoretically it would be if the prevailing trend had been maintained in the same year. In addition, it satisfies the demand for retributive justice of families impacted by murders of loved ones, and the unrestrained cries of many citizens, including many Christians, that every accused murderer should be cut down and burned in hell, even without a trial by the Court.

This is precisely where moral, ethical, legal, and religious issues arise. For each of the 311 individuals killed by the police last year the official narrative is usually the same line 3: Police coming under fire by active shooters and in self-defence the victims were shot and died.

No doubt there were instances when this is what transpired. At the same time, the incidents of disputed accounts by family members and people of the community must either indicate a sinister communal plot to malign the officers of the State or the need for greater transparency and accountability regarding such incidents. Additionally, when the head of Indecom publicly expresses concern about the number of police killings there has to be something that should pique the interest of citizens.

Consider, for example, the March 10, 2026 report of the killing of Shivnarine Saunders in Church Pen, Old Harbour, St Catherine, in which there are serious allegations concerning the circumstances under which he was killed after multiple visits to his home, and leaving many questions to be answered by the relevant authority. Although this was not readily forthcoming at the time, it is customary for the list of crimes which anyone killed by the police is alleged to have committed to be released to the public in the wake of the killing, thus settling the matter as far as many citizens are concerned.

Additionally, in accepting this dismissal of the case many consent to the notion that the Court is too slow to act in bringing such cases to trial anyway, or irrelevant in determining the guilt or innocence of these individuals. In situations in which innocent people are killed, as in the case of an infant some months ago, the loss of life can be dismissed as “collateral damage”.

For many Jamaicans, however, this is not a satisfactory situation. For there to be transparency and accountability, not only must Indecom continue to do its work, but there must be an uncompromising demand that the police, in undertaking targeted operations, for example, wear body cameras. The current response by the authorities is unacceptable and contemptuous toward those who demand that citizens of this country are entitled to transparency and accountability, particularly in light of the acquisition of body cams for significant sums and their availability for use. Thus, for example, when in a targeted operation resulting in a fatal shooting in 2026 and a body cam was issued to the attending officer, the official response is it was not activated because the officer reported that he had no pin for the cam to be placed on his uniform.

This demand is even more urgent as the minister of national security has gone to great pains in 2026 to explain that there is an inverse relationship between the decline in murders and the activities of the police. We may note that an inverse relationship occurs when two variables change in opposite directions — as one increases the other decreases, and vice versa. This is a troubling matter as it seems to suggest that nothing will change regarding the prevailing modus operandi, and there will be a continuation of the relationship between fatalities at the hands of the police and the reduction in the murder by citizens.

At the moment there are few voices of concern, except for Jamaicans for Justice, a number of human rights and civil groups, and a smattering of church voices, and for which these have become the targets of attack for the stance they have taken. So they are identified as anti-patriotic, supporters of murderers, lacking in sympathy for the survivor families of murders, and seeking to undermine and demoralise the police. Somehow in a country with an abundance of churches there seems to be nothing that many in leadership and membership have to offer, but to endorse the status quo.

Addressing this national issue cannot simply be based on emotion, feeling, or whether one is perceived to be in support of the Government of the day and the police, as the issue is not just a recent one, although it has taken on a more pressing dimension today. One could say that it is currently a global issue as manifested, for example, in the way in which the law enforcement agency ICE has been operating in the US outside of the law and with impunity; how the Government of Iran has responded in using the officers of the State by killing and suppressing protest from its citizens; and the oppressive regime in El Salvador, which many Jamaicans want our leaders to emulate, that incarcerates, kidnaps, murders, and represses their citizens in the name of crime and murder reduction.

This nation owes a debt of gratitude to our Chief Justice Brian Sykes for the teaching moment he provided for the citizens of our country in delivering the sentence in the case of Jolyan Silvera. As usual, many Jamaicans had their own idea of what should be the sentence meted out to the convicted individual, and so there were protesters guided by sympathy for the deceased and the bereaved family; those protesting violence against women; as well as many who were guided by emotion and a burning desire for retribution and ‘justice’. The wise chief justice used the occasion not to be intimated or yield to popular sentiment, but to give a patient and timely exposition on justice and how it is exercised even in the case of a convicted criminal.

One of the most disturbing concerns in all of this is the way in which many Christians seem to have nothing to bring to our national engagement of these matters beyond echoing the sentiments from the street, many others appealing to precedence from biblical law in the Old Testament, but forgetting biblical perspectives on justice, compassion, and the sacredness of every human life.

At this most holy season of Lent, leading into Holy Week and Easter, it seems an appropriate time for Christians to pause in the spirit of the season and reflect on how we deal with issues of justice for all persons, including those who have fallen foul of the law, or stand accused of committing homicide.

It cannot go unnoticed that the young men who are being killed at the hands of the state are from the lower echelons of society, inner-city communities, marginalised, and with the least opportunity for moving beyond their current social economic condition.

Howard Gregory is retired Anglican archbishop of the Province of the West Indies and lord bishop of Jamaica.