Murders in 2008
The number of people murdered in Jamaica in 2008 reached 1600.
That’s the second highest total ever recorded. 2005 saw more people killed – 1,674 was the total then. Read about 2005 totals here.
There were 1,574 murders reported in 2007, a 17 per cent rise on 2006. More details on those figures here.
One of the final murders in 2008 was a pregnant woman who was apparently shot over an argument about the whereabouts of an illegal gun. She and two others were taken out of the car they were driving in and shot several times. See full details of that shooting here.
I thought this photo of a woman shot on the street with her unfinished fizzy drink beside her while people around look on shows the reality of what these figures amount to. It has now become something that people become immune to and expect to see. Unless you are directly related to the person lying there, it’s easy to feel detached. While the fear means that more and more people stay indoors, they keep their houses, their mouths and their eyes tightly bound shut.
Bruce Golding is claiming success in his policies and says he’s going to improve the justice system – if it wasn’t so tragic it would be seriously laughable.
yes,Jamaica has become a killing field!!
[...] been in the job for three weeks and has listed his priorities for dealing with a crazy crime rate, see JA’s murder figures in this blog post. And here’s another post I wrote about the jump in [...]