Crime In Jamaica Part #1.

Hugh Lawson Shearer
Hugh Lawson Shearer


After the People’s National Party was returned to pow­er in Jamaica on the 29th of December, crime start­ed to trend upward. Jamaica gen­er­al­ly record approx­i­mate­ly 1600 homi­cides annu­al­ly which places her near to the very top of the most mur­der­ous coun­try on earth on a per capi­ta basis. With her pop­u­la­tion of approx­i­mate­ly 2.7 mil­lion peo­ple and land mass of rough­ly 4’411 square miles, the like­li­hood on get­ting slaugh­tered can­not be far from any­one’s mind. The slaugh­ter of anoth­er Jamaican is nev­er far away geo­graph­i­cal­ly. That includes those who wield polit­i­cal pow­er, of course the stark real­i­ties of that wan­ton slaugh­ter are not of much con­cern to them. Of course not all Jamaicans have large police secu­ri­ty detail at the expense of poor exposed and vul­ner­a­ble tax­pay­ers
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There are con­flict­ing expla­na­tions for the rea­sons crime trends upward under Governments formed by the People’s National Party(PNP) as against the con­di­tions which obtain under Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) admin­is­tra­tions. Like every­thing else in Jamaica this issue is viewed under polar­ized lens. Most Jamaicans are com­plete­ly unable to see things in an objec­tive way, inca­pable of accept­ing facts even when they are borne out with data, as long as it runs counter to their philo­soph­i­cal and polit­i­cal beliefs. Many would rather die in igno­rance than live with the truth.

This is the extent of the polar­iza­tion of Jamaican pol­i­tics, to a large extent there is very lit­tle mid­dle which would allow for objec­tiv­i­ty, free of polit­i­cal taint. PNP sup­port­ers and sym­pa­thiz­ers will argue that the esca­la­tion of crime under their lead­er­ship is attrib­ut­able large­ly to peo­ple from the oth­er par­ty desta­bi­liz­ing the gov­ern­ment by com­mit­ting heinous crimes. It nev­er mat­tered to those mak­ing that argu­ment that there were nev­er one shred of data in sup­port of those claims. In essence they were sim­ply crim­i­nal activ­i­ty which were not com­mit­ted by any spe­cif­ic group, or indi­vid­ual, and were not con­fined to any geo­graph­i­cal area which would bear out those claims. Conversely JLP sup­port­ers and sym­pa­thiz­ers will argue that peo­ple feel free to do as they choose under PNP lead­er­ship , as that par­ty is lax and do not make crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty a priority.

Let’s exam­ine the facts, pri­or to Manley assum­ing office in the 70’s crime was not a seri­ous prob­lem in Jamaica, com­par­a­tive­ly speak­ing. Under the lead­er­ship of Hugh Lawson Shearer the coun­try’s secu­ri­ty forces had a leader who sup­port­ed the rule of law and those who enforced the laws. Everyone was cog­nizant of those real­i­ties, the prime Minister made it known he was not going to allow it.

The coun­try was record­ing its great­est peri­od of growth and devel­op­ment, which by all sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis makes Hugh Lawson Shearer Jamaica’s most effec­tive Prime Minister. Then came demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ism, the great­est peri­od of social engi­neer­ing in the coun­try’s his­to­ry. In 1972 Michael Manley swept to pow­er on what would be the for­mal begin­ning of a pop­ulist mes­sage of “bet­ter must come”.