Editorial | Happy for fall in murders …

It would be good indeed if the number of murders in Jamaica this year fell below 800, as the security minister, Horace Chang, noted was possible, given the current trend lines.

While Dr Chang suggested that this figure would be a “historic low” for the island, it would, in fact, be the first time the island has recorded fewer than 800 criminal homicides since 1995, when there were 780 murders. That was 30 years ago. It would also be the first time that Jamaica has recorded fewer than 1,000 murders since 2003, when 976 homicides were recorded.

In the context of crime in Jamaica, citizens’ sense of (in)security, and last year’s murder count of 1,146, that decline, if sustained, would translate to around 350 lives being spared from criminals and a 30 per cent, year-on-year decline in homicides.

This as Dr Chang posited, would indeed be “a major victory for every law-abiding Jamaican”.

However, even as we celebrate this trend, and wish for it to continue, we are aware of past yo-yo style movements in Jamaica’s homicide figures, including periods of sharp declines before a return to an upward spiral.

For instance, after murders reached a record high 1,683 in 2009, they declined 14 per cent in 2010, the year of the police operation in Tivoli Gardens/west Kingston, in search of the crime boss, Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, during which more than 70 people died. In the five years between 2009 and 2014 inclusive, reported murders dropped 40 per cent, to 1,005. Then, the upward trajectory returned.

THINGS DIFFERENT

Dr Chang, however, insists that things are now different and that “Jamaica is firmly on the path to long-term, sustainable crime reduction”.

This, he and other members of the Government, as well as the leadership of the constabulary, have argued, is the result of a modernised, professional and transformed police force, on which huge sums of money have been spent over the past decade to upgrade technology and skills.

The police have also said that their targeting of criminal gangs, which are reported to be responsible for more than six in 10 murders, is paying dividends.

The Gleaner supports these developments.

But the welcome decline in murders notwithstanding, there is a disturbing development that is deserving of close attention, which, unfortunately, elicits an aggressive pushback, and often hostile reaction.

For the first four months of this year Jamaica’s police fatally shot 111 citizens, representing a more than 140 per cent increase, when compared to the same period in 2024. This continues the upward trend of recent years, after a sharp decline in police homicides that accompanied the 2010 launch of Independent Commission of Investigation (INDECOM), the body that investigates police shootings as well as citizens’ complaints of abuse by the security forces.

Last year, the police fatally shot 180 people, a 27 per cent increase than in 2023 and 78 per cent more than in 2020.

Relatives of victims of police killings, and other people in their communities, often claim that these deaths were unwarranted, accusing the police of behaving with impunity. INDECOM and human rights groups, particularly Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) , have raised concerns about the rising incidence of police fatal shootings. They also complain of the slow wide scale introduction by the constabulary of body-worn cameras (BWCs), which would provide video evidence of controversial incidents.

BUILD OUT TECHNOLOGY

While Police Commissioner Kevin Blake has declared the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s commitment to the use of BWCs, he says that the constabulary has first to build out the technology backbone to accommodate the system. That, apparently, is ongoing.

In the meantime, the body-worn cameras that are in use are assigned to police officers involved in public space management, where they are in close, and regular, contact with citizens and incidents are more likely to occur. This newspaper, like INDECOM and JFJ, supports the deployment of the BWCs to officers involved in so-called planned operations – which are supposed to be intelligence driven – when more than 40 per cent of the fatal shootings occur.

The suggestion – and sometimes clear narrative – unfortunately, is that raising these concerns by the oversight body and human rights groups means a lack of support for the police and an embracing of criminals.

Previously, Dr Blake, the police chief, argued that concerns about police homicides were “wrongly directed” and should be pointed towards” those who make the decision to challenge a far more superior force”.

After a demonstration last week by JFJ about the same issue and for the introduction of BWCs, Dr Blake again pointed to the brazenness of Jamaican criminals in confronting the police, adding: “Let me reassure you, we are undeterred. We will not retreat. We will not yield.

“The safety and security of the Jamaican people remain our mission, our duty and our commitment.”

There is no contradiction in supporting the police as they do a difficult job in difficult circumstances, and in insisting on their adherence to human rights and the law and in holding them accountable for their actions.

These are the normal tensions of liberal democracies, which usually flounder, and often fail, when the institutions that keep on, and call to account, those with power, are demonised or undermined.

An effective police force operating in accordance with the law, is vital to the maintenance of an ordered, and orderly liberal democracy. But so, too, are human rights groups.