Does CRIME have a Boundary?

Jamaica: we are known for our rum, coffee, music, laidback attitude, athleticism, attractions, slang, dance moves and of course our cuisine. This small island in the Caribbean is renowned the world over for so many things that it amazes many, just how much talent and treasures we have bubbling over in abundance. Unfortunately, we are also well recognised for something else that has always been a stain on us and definitely detracts from our otherwise positive profile as one of the coolest and most creative spots on earth…crime.

This prompted BUZZZ Magazine to look at crime from the standpoint of community relations and even boundaries. We know crime is everywhere and no one community or neighborhood is immune to its impact and effects, but are some communities safer than others? Are security guards and security cameras really a deterrent to criminality? Do break-ins and robberies occur more frequently downtown than up town, and if so, why is that?

According to a March 2022 Gleaner article, Jamaica was labelled as one of the most violent countries in the Caribbean in 2021, with 49.4 homicides per 100,000, placing the island as having the highest homicide rate in Latin America and the Caribbean. Now that is cause for some serious concern because no matter how many things we have going right, no one will be able to enjoy it, if no one bells the beast which is the twin demons of crime and violence. In fact, the Minister of National Security, Dr. Horace Chang, in the same article entitled ‘Crime and violence threatening growth and prosperity’, emphasized that if the crime beast is not tamed, the island may never experience the level of growth needed to make it sustainable, where it can continue to provide adequately for its citizens.

In examining other crime statistics, one must determine that it is not advisable to make blanket statements about crime being restricted to certain areas. In May 2013, Karyl Walker penned a piece ‘Crime Now at Uptown Doorsteps’ wherein he explored how a study conducted between 2007 and 2012 by the Violence Prevention Alliance (VPA) highlighted that murders are no longer confined to the typical crime hot spots and inner-city communities that everyone feared, but that it had begun to diversify and spread out island wide. “Traditionally, murders and violent crimes were committed in a clustered pattern around urban areas, namely the Kingston Metropolitan Region, sections of St Catherine and Montego Bay, St James, but the study has shown that more murders are being committed in non-traditional areas and are slowly creeping up to the doorsteps of persons who live in communities once thought sterile. The implications of this are that murders are becoming less concentrated in typical areas of violence and becoming more dispersed spatially.”