Serious Crimes at Lowest Rates in 22 Years – PM

Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness is reporting that serious crimes including murder, shootings, rape, robbery, and break-ins, are down by 10.7 per cent, the lowest in 22 years.

Mr. Holness further informed that murders were down by 7.8 per cent in 2023, when compared to 2022 and in the first 22 days of 2024, murders are down 21.9 per cent relative to 2023.

The Prime Minister provided the details during an address at the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE)19th Regional Investments and Capital Markets Conference, held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston on January 23.

While lauding the significant progress that has been made in sustainably addressing crime, Mr. Holness pointed to the need to address violence in the society.

“We need to make more progress in addressing violence. Too often when we talk about crime and violence, we lump them together as one. Of course, they are probably two sides of the same coin, but they require two different strategies,” he stated.

“You can deal with crime via policing, but you can’t always deal with violence via policing. Other strategies have to be employed and, therefore, we have to turn our economic resources to deal with violence because violence has a significant drag effect on our economy,” he added.

Mr. Holness pointed to some of the measures the Government has taken towards a more peaceful society, such as the strengthening of legislation, including the new Firearms Act and the new Bail Act.

“Very soon, we will make amendments to the penalties under the Offences against the Person Act which will increase the mandatory minimum sentence for murder before being eligible for parole,” he indicated.

He also noted that the capacity of security forces has been “greatly strengthened”.

“Have you noticed that the investigative capacity of our security forces has increased significantly? They are now bringing to our courts cases that before would have gone unsolved and they are doing it in quite a rapid way, and I want to acknowledge the significant improvements of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF),” the Prime Minister said.

Mr. Holness committed that as the Government builds a caring economy, it will be directing public resources to deal with the issue of violence.
“We will continue our fight against crime, and we will also broaden our focus to treat with violence,” he said.