HomeNewsBriefJamaica Minister: Street Gangs Primary Cause of Violence
BRIEF

Jamaica Minister: Street Gangs Primary Cause of Violence

CARIBBEAN / 22 FEB 2012 BY GEOFFREY RAMSEY EN

Jamaica's top security official claims that the country’s violence is due to the mounting threat of street gangs in the island nation, and announced the creation of a new anti-gang policy.

At a press conference yesterday, Jamaica’s National Security Minister Peter Bunting said that police have seen 165 homicides so far this year, compared to 135 during the same period of 2011. According to Bunting, the vast majority of homicides in the country are gang related. He was joined at the conference by Police Commissioner Owen Ellington, who told reporters that police on the island are currently attempting to quell the violence resulting from 42 active gang conflicts.

Bunting also announced that the government of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who was elected just two months ago, is preparing a comprehensive anti-gang policy which is intended to bring the country’s homicide rate down significantly over the next five years. By 2017, the government hopes to reduce the number of homicides to a maximum of 321, which Bunting described as “First World levels.” Last year, police registered 1,124 murders on the island, the lowest number since 2003.

InSight Crime Analysis

Bunting’s remarks about the influence of Jamaican street gangs are supported by a recently-released UN report on citizen security in the Caribbean. The study found that in 2009 about 48 percent of killings in Jamaica were gang-related, up from 33 percent in 2006.

Jamaica also has the highest number of gangs in the region, with an estimated 268 criminal bands on its streets. Perhaps the best known street gang is the Shower Posse gang, based in the West Kingston neighborhood of Tivoli Gardens. The Shower Posse was significantly weakened following the June 2010 arrest of drug kingpin Christopher "Dudus" Coke, but is still among the most influential gangs in Kingston.

Prime Minister Simpson Miller’s promised security plan is ambitious, but its implementation may be slowed by the entrenched corruption in the country. Jamaican gangs are notorious for their hierarchical structure, and are frequently involved in politics. While usually this involvement only takes place at the local level, with neighborhood gang leaders pledging to support a political candidate in exchange for favors, the difficulty prosecutors faced in extraditing “Dudus” Coke illustrates that some gangs hold sway amongst even the highest levels of Jamaican government.

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

COCA / 11 JUL 2022

Following multiple killings, Indigenous leaders in the Peruvian Amazon are again facing threats of violence after coca eradication operations in…

COLOMBIA / 13 SEP 2023

Pablo Escobar's former hitman, Henry Holguín, explains how he exchanged killing for peacebuilding ahead of Colombia's Total Peace talks.

CARIBBEAN / 11 FEB 2022

Latin American countries scored poorly on Transparency International’s latest corruption index, with the worst joining the ranks of war-torn nations…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…