“JAMAICA’S MURDER RATE DOWN 30%” SAYS SECURITY MINISTER PETER BUNTING!

Minister of National Security Peter Bunting says the country’s murder rate has declined by 30 per cent since the start of the year.
According to a Jamaica Information Service (JIS) news release quoting the minister on the weekend, the island’s murder rate has decreased from 3.1 murders per day to two murders per day.
The latest statistics follow Mr Bunting’s announcement earlier this month that March recorded the lowest number of murders in nine years.

Minister Bunting says the overall reduction in murders is linked to the recent intensification of crime fighting strategies. He says mechanisms are being put in place to ensure the gains achieved by the crime fighters are not reversed.
He says Jamaicans have become tolerant of the high levels of crime, adding that the country’s murder rate has been impeding its growth for more than 40 years.

An investment banker by profession, Minister Bunting says the Jamaican economy and its earnings per capita could be three times and ten times its current levels if the murders were not as high.

He says defects in the judicial system also need to be addressed to cap the murder rate. He says the current postponement of cases has not only been delaying justice, but costing Jamaicans millions of dollars.