JAMAICA | Guns and Ja's homicide rate in perspective - Orville Taylor

KINGSTON, Jamaica,  Feb. 9, 2022 - On January 24, RJRGLEANER reported scary statistics from the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). At 112 homicides, we had killed 15 per cent more of ourselves than we did in 2021. Two weeks later, the overall figure looks different. All major crimes at the end of January were down, including murders. Did something dramatic happen?

Let us try to make sense of the numbers. Homicides have never been a true indication of violence in a society; it is just that the assailants are more successful in their attempts to fulfil their malice.

Follow me! If there are 99 attempts to murder someone, including another 51 shootings by men whose ‘hands lean’, and no one dies; then we can easily boast that there has been zero killings and from that, the less astute or honest will argue that the period under reference was less violent.

Conversely, if there were 50 successful shootings and 50 non-fatal incidents, we would run with the story of increased homicides and thus violence. However, the truth would be that there was a massive dip in major crimes. It is not an academic discourse; it is plain common sense.

Days ago, the JCF revealed holistic data and all major crimes had been reduced in January 2022 when juxtaposed against 2021. By any matrix, including those infused with copious doses of hypocrisy, crime has gone down. Murders dipped by nine or six per cent and shootings from 121 to 96, a drop of 21 per cent. On the whole, when rape, burglary and robbery are added, the numbers are 405, or 94 fewer than in 2022.

To be cautious, rape and burglary, especially the former, are notorious for under-reporting and other errors. However, given the greater vigilance and visibility of killings and shootings, it is fair to accept that the figures at the end of January 2022 are slightly better than last year.

CRISIS

Doubtless a reduction from 499 to 405 is nothing to stroke oneself over, because 500 violent incidents are far too many in a society like ours. A homicide rate of 48 per 100,000 is a crisis. But even small steps must be appreciated when the rank and file of the JCF is as thin as a crackhead’s bank account.

True, no one is assured by the numbers. However, there is a noticeable pattern. More than 70 per cent of the current deaths are ‘gang related’. If we take out this large category, every one of the statistics looks very much like those in any metropolitan country.

It might be surprising, but about six years ago, a USAID study on Latin America and the Caribbean revealed that our overall crime rate, which includes burglary, carjacking, abductions, among others, was actually lower than up north.

Our problem is mostly youth, of university age, killing each other. We need to fix this sociologically.

Next, the overwhelming majority of the murders are carried out with firearms; illegal of course. At least half of the weapons are of American origin, both in make and point of shipment. Indeed, a recovered illegal firearm in a current case before the court was actually stolen from the Atlanta Police Department in the US, in 2018. This is the woolly mammoth in the room, because elephants don’t come from north.

FRIGHTENING DETAILS

A 2019 New York Times article reveals some frightening details. For example, between 2016 and 2018, of the 1,500 weapons the American Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) checked in collaboration with Jamaican police, some 71 per cent were American originated.

One particular nine-millimetre Browning pistol monikered ‘Briana’ left the US without a trace in 1991 but featured in multiple murders and was the eighth most notorious weapon used in killings up to 2019. There is no secret that a big part of the problem is the relatively loose gun control laws in the US and criminals who hide under the Second Amendment of the Constitution.

The loss of a police firearm, which subsequently appears in the hands of Jamaican criminals, must at a minimum be a source of embarrassment to our neighbours, if not a wake-up call.

To the credit of the Jamaican constabulary, some 100 illegal firearms have been captured by them since January. We await further detail regarding the identity of the deceased man who had a cache of 13 powerful weapons in his gated upscale residence.

Criminals come in all shades and classes. My breath is also held as the commissioner cautions that the shipment of guns intercepted by the cops and being reported as ‘erroneously’ sent to Jamaica might not be what we think. Still, this is a war that the Americans must also fight.

In Black History Month where black lives matter, Jamaica is very much like many American cities with large black populations, and loose American guns kill lots of black folk. New Orleans’ homicide rate is 30.67 per 100,000. Detroit, Michigan is 41.45 per 100,000 residents and Baltimore, just miles from the White House and Congress, has a rate of is 58.27 per 100,000.

This should put our efforts and challenges in perspective.

---

Dr Orville Taylor is head of the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Email feedback to  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

This commentary first published  by the Gleaner at the following URL: https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/commentary/20220206/orville-taylor-guns-and-homicides-again