KINGSTON, Jamaica — Prime Minister Andrew Holness has declared that his Government will continue to “go hard on the criminals” and “eliminate” them from society to ensure Jamaica can achieve its full economic potential.

At the same time, he urged citizens to reject the notion that criminals are modern-day Robin Hoods, a famous English folk hero who robbed from the rich to give to the poor.

He told business leaders and guests at Sunday night’s St Ann Chamber of Commerce Awards banquet that once this mindset is shifted, even the Jamaican tourism product will improve, while workers in the industry will start to benefit from increased wages.

“We will continue to go hard on the criminals; we will eliminate them from our society so we can get the full value of Jamaica!” declared Holness to loud applause inside the Cardiff Hotel and Spa in Runaway Bay, St Ann.

“I want that to be unmistakable in its understanding. I am not ambivalent about it, and I want every Jamaican to be decisive about it; they [the criminals] are the ones that have kept us from realising our full potential,” he urged.

According to Holness, individuals have long held the view that criminal elements are saving communities or providing justice to them.

“No, they’re not doing that! They are raping your daughters and killing your sons,” the prime minister said.

The number of murders recorded in Jamaica declined from 1,147 in 2024 to 673 in 2025 — a 43 per cent reduction in a single year.

And, the prime minister told business leaders that he expects that figure to decrease even further for 2026.

“For the first time in 30 years, the murder rate is below a thousand… And we intend to bring the murder rate down even more, and I can tell you, once the murder rate goes all the way down in a sustained way, the value of Jamaican tourism is going to improve, and the value of production of the Jamaican tourism worker and their pay will improve,” Holness stated.

Earlier in his main address at the function, he compared tourism workers in Jamaica and Barbados, pointing out that criminality has impacted the Jamaican tourism industry’s value, which, in turn, has kept wages low for workers.

“The hotel worker in Runaway Bay [St Ann] works just as hard as the hotel worker in Bridgetown [Barbados], but the Barbadian economy generates nearly three times the value per hour as our economy. They are not working three times as hard as us; they are working in a higher value version of the same industry,” Holness informed.

He added, “The Barbadian worker isn’t working harder than persons who I saw serving quite efficiently and professionally here, but they earn more because they have a higher value product than us.”

Based on his assessment, the prime minister said one must ask why Barbados has a higher value service industry in tourism than Jamaica.

“There are many reasons… I want to focus on one just now; Barbados has less crime than us,” said Holness in responding to his question.

Noting that he was not only speaking to business interests but to the average Jamaican, Holness asserted that the society tolerates crime due to ambivalence.

“Why do we have more crime here? [There are] many reasons, but one of it is that we tolerate it as a people. We are ambivalent about it as a people! For some people who are involved in crime, it is because of some social injustice or social disenfranchisement…[but] we need as a people to be clear in minds that crime impacts our productivity, [and] crime destroys the value of our service and product,” he insisted.

He further argued that criminals are not merely disenfranchised youths, as the money spent on illegal guns could be used for tools to generate honest wealth for themselves.

“We must stop seeing the criminals as Robin Hoods and see them for what they are— a pestilence!” declared Holness.

“I can tell by the clap [that] my statement is true. Ambivalence! And until we get that out of our minds that we not dealing with angels, then we will continue to cuddle them unless we recognise that the criminals impact the tourism product and reduces the value we can get from it [and] we won’t grow and your wages will remain low, because the service that we offer is a much better product, but we can’t get the value out of it because there is this stigma,” Holness stated.