2025 was a key year in Jamaican history as the country saw a continued decrease in murders, recording 649 across the year, a 43 per cent reduction when compared to 2024. It marks the fewest number of murders in the country in more than 30 years, and continues from 2024, which saw a decline when compared to 2023. This is good news; the security forces must be commended for their work, as should the everyday citizens who have turned in criminals and advised security forces of the whereabouts of the guns and drugs.
This represents almost 500 fewer murders, almost 500 lives saved, able to work, form families and live otherwise productive lives. Murders and violent crimes eat up at least seven per cent of our GDP, that is money which could be pumped into schools, hospitals and clinics, roads, culture, or the environment. Instead, it is used to bury people or use resources in the valiant effort of trying to save a life or the lost productivity of a person with long-term injuries. This is a milestone that must be cherished, studied, and built on.
Interestingly, the decline, I feel, anecdotally, of course, shows us that certain strategies that we have been using in the past, simply don’t work. The decline, also, anecdotally, may be temporary or stagnate if what we are seeing as trends, continue.
The sharpest decline in murders has taken place when SOEs as crime-fighting tools have been declared illegal, and the use of rolling SOEs has stopped. That fact cannot be overstated as it puts to bed the Government’s argument that the SOE is needed to clamp down on crime. The SOE is for national emergencies like natural disasters, war, and things of that nature. A high crime rate is not an emergency, at least according to the courts, and should not be treated as such.
We have saved almost 500 lives using cordons and curfews, not the infringing on rights and the arbitrary detention of citizens. This, I think, needs to be investigated, especially in light of the growing trend of restrictions on civil liberties that we have seen across the region as it lurches to the right. As countries like El Salvador become poster children for crime suppression, when in reality all they have done is make deals with gangs, Jamaica’s situation, where murders declined 43 per cent using only ZOSOs, and no rolling SOEs – 7 were declared but none were extended – must be held up as the example for countries like Trinidad and other Caribbean nations that preach liberal democracy.
Praise must also be given to the security forces. They have, through their hard work, brought the number down, and we hope it continues. There is, however, the worrying trend of police killings, and that also needs to be looked into. If it is that the police are simply killing violence producers, it will not bear long-term fruit as new, younger gunmen will take their place, potentially leading to a skyrocketing of murders.
The country must sustain this drop and work on the interpersonal or domestic disputes which end in violence. This can only be tackled through a revamping of what our values and attitudes are, and it is good to hear the prime minister speaking about this type of violence. Domestic violence, be it spousal or interpersonal, comes from a mindset that violence is the first port of call; it comes from people with little emotional intelligence and comes from people who lack empathy.
If we can implement such a values and attitude programme as well as sustain the drop in murders, we could even be looking at sub 200 murders in the next decade. This must be the goal, but it cannot be done, as has been shown by infringing on people’s rights. This must be a team effort with the State and people playing their part side by side.
