Holness: Gov’t targeting violence reduction to improve productivity

The Government plans to tackle low growth and worker output by enacting laws that target the reduction of violence.

“Violence has a significant drag effect on our economy. Violence has an impact on productivity,” said Prime Minister Andrew Holness in his address at the Jamaica Stock Exchange’s annual Capital Markets Conference on Tuesday night.

Jamaica suffers from high levels of crime and violence. The cost of personal and commercial security impacts company formation and expansion while workers leave the job earlier than necessary or pay more for secure transportation.

The World Bank and other donor agencies have documented that crime costs the society between 3.7 per cent and 7.1 per cent of GDP. In other words, reducing that cost would place the island among the fastest-growing nations in the region.

The Government plans to enact a new Firearms Act;, a new Bail Act, and amendments to the Penalties Against the Person Act, which will increase the mandatory minimum sentence for murder.

Last November, Holness announced that he was contemplating setting up a new ministry to tackle violence. In his words, Jamaica’s homicide rate equates to countries that are at war.

Jamaica tops the Americas with the highest murder rate, followed by Honduras, Belize, The Bahamas, and Trinidad and Tobago, according to the Global Study on Homicide 2023, released last month by the United Nations. The study utilised data from the publication year or the most up-to-date country data.

“Jamaica’s 2022 homicide rate reached 53.3 per 100,000, with around 70 per cent linked to organised criminal groups or gangs,” the study indicated.

Haiti, which is undergoing a sort of gang civil war, was not in the top 20 most violent countries in the Americas even though its rate rose 35 per cent year on year to 18 per 100,000 in 2022, the report stated.

This supports Holness’ point last November that “we are in conflict with ourselves”.

On the positive side, murders thus far in January are down 8.0 per cent compared to a year ago, and all serious crimes throughout 2023 — which include murders, rape, break-ins and robberies — declined 21 per cent compared to 2022.

“It is the lowest in 22 years,” the prime minister said. “We are definitely having an impact on crime, but we need to have an even bigger impact on the social phenomena and public health crisis of violence.”

The 2020 pandemic, although a health crisis, arguably contributed to economic, societal, and psychological pressure across households. The outcome resulted in higher levels of domestic violence among some metrics.

Holness said that while policing deals with crime, not all acts of violence require policing.

“Other strategies need to be employed,” he said.

Jamaica successfully conquered violence in politics, which scarred the general elections from the 1970s to the 1990s. Holness said it happened through legislative and institutional changes, along with partnerships. It resulted in the formation of the Electoral Commission, the Office of the Political Ombudsman, and amendments to the Representation of the People’s Act.

“We have had four elections now, and there has been no taint of political violence, so we can do it. We can conquer social violence, intimate-partner violence, and domestic violence provided we can come together as a country in partnership to pass the necessary laws and necessary allocations for social support so that our people do not resort to violence as the first opportunity to resolve conflict,” he said. “And once we do this, we will see an increase in our productivity.”

business@gleanerjm.com