JAMAICA'S CRIME "SUCCESS" IS BUILT ON A DANGEROUS LIE: By Richard Hugh Blackford

Jamaica’s government and police leadership are celebrating what they describe as a historic achievement: a reported 43 percent reduction in murders last year. Critics, they insist, are waging a “sustained attack” on the security forces, undermining public confidence in crime-fighting strategies such as focused deterrence and intelligence-led policing. But statistics without context are not truth. And Jamaica’s current approach to policing is not a success story, it is a warning.

In the first five days of 2026, Jamaican police killed 15 people. That figure alone exposes the core problem: the state is no longer prioritizing arrest, investigation, and prosecution. It is normalizing lethal force as a substitute for justice. This is not crime control. It is a drift toward authoritarianism.

When the State Becomes a Major Source of Violence

In most democracies, police killings are rare, exceptional events subject to intense scrutiny. In Jamaica, they have become routine. In recent years, police have accounted for roughly one-quarter to one-third of all violent deaths in the country in 2025; an extraordinary figure by any international standard.

Yet accountability remains elusive. Fatal shootings are almost always justified by identical post-incident claims: the police “came under fire.” Independent investigations are slow, opaque, and rarely lead to prosecutions. The result is a system where lethal force is rewarded with impunity.

The government’s argument is simple: fewer murders justify the means. But democracies are not measured solely by outcomes; they are judged by process, legality, and restraint. A state that kills its way to statistical improvement is not strengthening the rule of law; it is dismantling it.

The Misuse of “Focused Deterrence”

Officials frequently invoke focused deterrence to legitimize current tactics. In its original form, the strategy targets high-risk offenders while pairing enforcement with social services, legal transparency, and judicial oversight. But this is not what is happening in Jamaica.

Here, “focus” has become a euphemism for unchecked intelligence, “deterrence” has become a justification for preemptive violence. Names appear on police lists, operations are launched, and bodies follow; without warrants, trials, or convictions. When courts are bypassed, intelligence becomes unchallengeable, and policing mutates into punishment.

This approach does not deter crime sustainably. It hardens communities, deepens mistrust, and ensures that witnesses remain silent; not out of loyalty to criminals, but out of fear of the state.

The Silence That Enables Abuse

Equally troubling is the institutional quiet. Traditional media outlets largely reproduce official police statements with minimal scrutiny. The Church, one time a long a moral voice in Jamaican society; has been conspicuously absent from the conversation, even as the sanctity of life is repeatedly violated. Silence, in this context, is not neutrality. It is consent.

History shows that when societies excuse state violence against “suspects,” the category of suspect inevitably expands. Today it is alleged gang members. Tomorrow it may be protesters, dissidents, or simply the inconvenient poor.

Why This Path Is So Dangerous

Even if murder rates decline in the short term, the long-term consequences are severe:

Innocent lives will be lost. No intelligence system is infallible.

Police corruption will deepen. Impunity attracts abuse.

Public trust will collapse. Fear does not produce cooperation.

Democratic norms will erode. Emergency logic becomes permanent policy.

Ironically, Jamaica has already lived this story before. Inquiries into past security-force abuses revealed decades later what was denied at the time: that the state had sacrificed its moral authority for temporary control.

What Must Happen Now

If Jamaica’s political leadership refuses to act, responsibility shifts to civil society and the diaspora. Police killings must be internationalized as a human-rights issue, not framed as a domestic crime debate. Independent oversight, mandatory body cameras, transparent inquests, and external monitoring are not anti-police measures; they are pro-democracy safeguards.

The question is no longer whether Jamaica can reduce crime. It is whether it can do so without becoming a state that kills first and explains later. History will not ask how many murders fell in 2025 or 2026. It will ask how many rights were buried to make those numbers possible; and who stayed silent while it happened.

That is the real measure of Jamaica’s future.

Richard Hugh Blackford is a Jamaican-born writer, visual artist, cultural & social commentator. Check out his books at https://www.yaawdmedia.com/books

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