Is murder ‘okay’ if it’s below 1000?

Political commentator Richard ‘Dickie’ Crawford has taken issue with the recent directive by the prime minister that efforts must be made to keep murders below the 1000-mark this year.

“The statement says to me that maybe politicians think that murder is inevitable, but all you have to do is make sure it’s not above 1000,” Crawford told Loop News in a recent interview.

Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said at a town hall meeting in Montego Bay, St James that he’ll be holding Police Commissioner Dr Carl Williams and Security Minister Robert Montague accountable to take the necessary steps in getting the murder figures below the 1,000 mark.

Days later, Montague told Loop News that measures are being implemented that will keep the island’s murder rate below the thousand mark this year.

“We have met with the police high command. We have briefed them on the policies of the new administration. They have responded with an implementation schedule and we are working together on how we will achieve the aims and the objectives,” Montague said.

But Crawford has taken umbrage.

“What kind of statement is that? People are killing people over money [in the lotto scam] and whatever; family members are killing each other.

I’m getting concerned about how politics and the legal system have failed to deal with crime,” Crawford said.

“They seem to look at crime as if it’s some investment portfolio instead of the seriousness it is,” he added.    

The country’s annual murder figures have consistently been above the 1,000 rate for years. The year 2014 registered the lowest figures in 11 years when it recorded 1,005 murders.

The year before that saw 1,200 murders.

The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) said the country had at least 1,192 murders in 2015, a roughly 20 per cent increase from 2014.

Many administrations have struggled over the years to check the murder rate, since it exploded in the 1990s.

Shortly after becoming security minister in early 2012, the PNP’s Peter Bunting announced his administration’s intention of reducing the annual homicide numbers to 320 killings by 2017.

But the bloodletting continued unabated.

Jamaica’s 45 murders per 100,000 people in 2015, kept it ranked among the most violent countries in the world.

In recent years, the UN listed the island as having the world’s sixth-worst homicide rate. The World Bank ranked Jamaica in the top five in 2013.

Authorities attribute the rise in killings to clashes among lottery scam rings over money and “lead lists” containing identity information about targets living abroad, mostly in the United States.