Jamaica continues to experience a remarkable reduction in crime, with 33 murders for January. this year. The country is averaging slightly more than one killing per day—a sharp 55 percent decline compared to the same period in 2025, putting the country on track to hit 300 for 2026, the lowest in 50 years.
The decline in 2026 continues momentum from 2023, which accelerated into 2025, when Jamaica recorded under 673 total murders for the year, a 42 percent drop from 2024 and the lowest count in decades. For years, Jamaica exceeded 1,000 annual murders, and as high as 1,683 in 2009 and 1,647 as far back as 2017. The reduction in crime since 2023 makes this transformation historic, with a positive impact on the wider economy.
Over the past two weeks, murders dropped below one a day, with just 6 murders in the past week, and 5 the previous one.
2026 Forecast: At the current trend, Jamaica is on track to record around 300 murders for the year, potentially the lowest since 1975 when murders ended at 266.
The decline that puts murders on track for 300 this year has positive implications for a boost to the country’s economic growth, with fewer resources having to be deployed on security, providing a notable boost to the entertainment industry and greater appeal and attractiveness for the tourism industry and other sectors related to it. Some of these benefits will take some time to manifest.
If the above is achieved, it would put murders in line to match the 976 cases in 2003 and the lowest in more than two decades. If the security forces make further inroads the social malady, the numbers next year could fall well below the 2003 outcome.
Unemployment rose sharply between in 1977 as the economy contracted significantly, accompanied by capital and human flight. The unemployment rate of just over 11.2 percent in 1975 jumped to 23.8 percent in 1977 and to 27.7 percent in 1979 and remained around 26 percent to 1989, with a few years of modest fall. From 1990 the unemployment numbers started to moderate as can be seen from the chart, but increased murders had just started to climb in 1990 a 15 year lag from the sharp jump in unemployment that provided a greater pool of recruits for criminal activities for several years.
Last year murders were down 12.5 percent to 655 compared with 749 for the same period in 2022. If the trend so far in 2024 continues murders could fall below 1,200 for the first time since 2015.
The hotspots for murders of St James and Westmoreland saw a reduction of 31 and 12 percent to 73 and 57 murders respectively, St Ann has a decrease of 24 percent from 42 murders last year to 32 this year, Clarendon had a 38 percent fall to 37 from 60 in 2023, while Kingston Western dropped 39 percent higher to 28. St Andrew South lost 20 percent of its residents with 51 persons losing their lives by murderers compared with 64 in 2023 to early July. St Catherine North had a 10 percent reduction in murders with 46 versus 51 in the same period in 2023 and the South saw 19 percent fewer persons falling to their death by unlawful means with 44 deaths, down from 54 in 2023.
In 1962, the year of independence for Jamaica, there were 63 murders which jumped by 153 percent over the 351 in 1979 to 889 in the politically charged murderous 1980. Murders have gotten out of control since, with respective governments unable to tackle this chronic problem and bring resolution to it.
Murders in Jamaica have plummeted by a huge 44 percent in the first 14 days of 2019, compared to the similar period in 2018.