ALTHOUGH all the categories of serious and violent crimes have been on a decline locally, Jamaica still records some of the highest crime stats worldwide.
Minister of National Security Peter Bunting made the revelation while speaking recently at the launch of the Next GENDERation toolkit — an initiative led by the World Bank to support efforts to stem Jamaica’s epidemic of violent crimes. Bunting said that despite efforts to curb these numbers, the Caribbean and Central America continue to top the charts in violent crimes, adding that the problem isn’t only one of law enforcement. “Violent crime is largely a youth-based phenomenon in terms of the perpetrators and in terms of the victims. If I were to look at one of the primary indicators of gender-based violence, which is rape, and I were to go back five years, we have seen rapes in year to date January at about a third of what they were five years ago,” Bunting said.
“But, [though] all the categories of serious and violent crimes have been on a decline — a long-term trend — the challenge is we started from such a high level that even when we have cut it in half, it still leaves us with the highest categories worldwide. “Our region unfortunately, the Caribbean and Central America, is the region with the highest level of violent crimes in the world. It is really a development imperative not just for Jamaica, but for the entire region.” The national security minister said one contributing factor that needs to be addressed in the “most urgent and profound way” is the impact of ‘fatherlessness’ on our children. Bunting, who was quoting statistics he said he received from Dr Michael Coombs, founder of the National Association of the Family, said that based on research done in the United States, United Kingdom and the Caribbean, fatherless children may be the reason for the crime epidemic.
“It indicates that fatherless boys, for example, that’s 50 per cent of our boys in Jamaica, are 11 times more likely to display violent behaviour, nine times more likely to run away from home and become victims or perpetrators of crime, twice as likely to drop out of school, nine times more likely to become gang members, and six times more likely to end up in prison,” he said. Added Bunting: “Fatherless girls are more than twice as likely to experience teenage pregnancies and nine times more likely to be victims of sexual abuse.” Subsequently, he said making this one adjustment and getting fathers involved in the lives of their children could significantly create a shift in the existing social paradigm, leading to a phenomenal change. Additionally, Bunting said he has recognised the influence that gender dynamics has on violence, and his ministry has engaged a gender specialist in phase three of their Citizens Security and Justice Programme to ensure gender sensitivity and equity in all its intervention activities.
“We want to ensure that we have a better understanding of how the risk of violence affects young men and young women differently and to implement that in our various outreach programmes,” he said. Bunting maintained that he, along with the Ministry of National Security, is commited to working with its partners — the world bank, other international and multilateral partners, private sector and civil society — to change the negative social norms that have so deeply scarred many of our young men and young women. Jamaica’s crime stats among highest worldwide, despite reduction