HomeNewsAnalysisWhy Jamaica's Homicide Rate Is Up 20%
ANALYSIS

Why Jamaica's Homicide Rate Is Up 20%

CARIBBEAN / 20 JUN 2017 BY MIMI YAGOUB EN

Jamaica's homicide rate has risen steeply in 2017, in what is likely the symptom of a splintering underworld.

Between January and June 10, 639 people were murdered in Jamaica, an average of four murders a day, police data revealed. This reportedly represents a 19 percent rise from last year, when the murder rate reached around 50 per 100,000, according to preliminary calculations by InSight Crime.

At the current rate, Jamaica could see around 1,450 murders by the end of the year, in a country with a similar population size to the city of Chicago (approximately 2.8 million). That would be 100 more than the number killed in 2016.

This year's tally includes 45 multiple killings.

"There were 37 double murders, six triple murders and two quadruple murders," Police Chief George Quallo said at a press conference, adding that 70 percent of killings were attributed to gangs.

Rural areas have been especially affected of late, with 33 people killed in rural parishes in a single week in June, while 21 were killed in the "Corporate Area" or greater Kingston.

Government opposition spokesman Peter Bunting commented on "the lack of a coherent response from the government on the issue," and the need to boost police and military presence.

Recognizing that the police's proposed strategies are not entirely new, Quallo laid out the institution's short-term plan against the tide of violence. This will see special measures allowing for "cordons and searches, curfews and detentions for preventative and investigative purposes."

InSight Crime Analysis

Jamaica's escalating homicide rate over the past three years has much to do with security force crackdowns on Jamaica's gangs, or "posses," and the violent repercussions these have had in the long term, according to sociologist Lilian Bobea.

Violent gangs have exerted power on this island for decades, after originally being empowered by the country's two rival political parties to secure civilian support. But the posse's nature has mutated significantly since a key event in Jamaica's recent history: the arrest in 2010 of Christopher "Dudus" Coke, considered at the time to be the biggest criminal boss, or "don," in the country.

The gangs also used the crisis to redefine their operations and have since splintered, dispersed and diversified.

The explosive operation to detain Coke, which sparked a bloody battle between the gangs and state forces, led to the realization that the posse's power had come to threaten the state itself. From then on both the Jamaican government and, to an extent, the civilian population, began to distance themselves from the gangs.

With their two fundamental support bases weakened and their main leader behind bars, posses became more vulnerable to the ensuing police crackdown on their members, Bobea told InSight Crime. Violence was relatively suppressed, and from 2009 to 2014 Jamaica's murder rate fell from 62 to 36 per 100,000.

SEE ALSO:  Caribbean News and Profile

But the government's new strategy of "decapitating" the gangs appears to have now backfired. According to Bobea, the gangs used the crisis to redefine their operations and avoid detection, and have since splintered, dispersed and diversified.

This process of decentralization saw posses fragment and expand into new areas, Bobea explained. Whereas violence was once concentrated in a handful of areas in Jamaica's capital, this has now entered more distant corners, which could explain the rise in homicides in rural districts, according to the analyst.

At the same time that gangs were dispersing, external factors pressured them into diversifying their criminal revenue. Posses have long been facilitators and transporters in the transnational drug trade. But as interdiction efforts curbed the Caribbean air bridge around the turn of the century -- and the United States started producing better quality marijuana -- this stream of income depleted.

Jamaican gangs turned to the famed "lottery scams," among other activities, setting off battles between rival rings seeking access to these new rents. Authorities blamed this phenomenon for surging homicides over the last year; indeed, the so-called "lotto scamming parishes" of St James, Westmoreland and Hanover -- tens of miles away from the capital -- have seen some of the most astonishing peaks in violence this year. On June 12, four family members, including two minors, were shot to death using high-caliber weapons in a rural community in the northwestern parish of Hanover.

SEE ALSO:  Coverage of Jamaica

Extortion is another revenue option that has long been used by posses, but which now carries with it more violence as gangs impose their quota outside of their "garrisons," or neighborhoods, asserting their control in communities that have not traditionally been loyal to them.

With civilians increasingly the targets of attack, the frequency of multiple killings has also grown, according to Bobea.

The Jamaican underworld's descent towards disorganized crime is reflected in other parts of Latin America, notably in Mexico's fractured criminal landscape. Here, the "kingpin" strategy of going after criminal leaders has precipitated chaos and record-setting murder rates.

Mexico has fallen back on this problematic tactic, and Jamaica has a history of resorting to military force in times of disorder. But according to Bobea, it would be better for Jamaican authorities to divert more resourced towards prevention, "the most overlooked" aspect of law enforcement, and strengthening the judiciary, without which police efforts go to waste.

Opposition spokesman Bunting echoed her views: "What is happening now is that the police are starved of resources," he said.

The police has already made efforts to work closer to the community, and several social and gang prevention programs have been implemented. However, according to a recent report on the Caribbean, their impact is not often studied. 

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

GULF CARTEL / 22 JUN 2021

Though the motive for the rampage in the northern Mexican border city of Reynosa that left scores of civilians dead…

CARIBBEAN / 3 JUN 2022

Gangs in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince are rounding up homeless and at-risk teens, who are increasingly being used as…

CARIBBEAN / 31 MAY 2022

Top authorities in Trinidad and Tobago have warned legislators that the Caribbean island nation is likely to see a rise…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela Coverage Continues to be Highlighted

3 MAR 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-director Jeremy McDermott was the featured guest on the Americas Quarterly podcast, where he provided an expert overview of the changing dynamics…

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela's Organized Crime Top 10 Attracts Attention

24 FEB 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published its ranking of Venezuela’s ten organized crime groups to accompany the launch of the Venezuela Organized Crime Observatory. Read…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime on El País Podcast

10 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-founder, Jeremy McDermott, was among experts featured in an El País podcast on the progress of Colombia’s nascent peace process.

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Interviewed by Associated Press

3 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime’s Co-director Jeremy McDermott was interviewed by the Associated Press on developments in Haiti as the country continues its prolonged collapse. McDermott’s words were republished around the world,…

THE ORGANIZATION

Escaping Barrio 18

27 JAN 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published an investigation charting the story of Desafío, a 28-year-old Barrio 18 gang member who is desperate to escape gang life. But there’s one problem: he’s…