Jamaica 2017 Murders by Police Division & Parish: St James remains on top

2017 Murders by Police Division

The police have released the 2017 statistics for murder by police division. As expected, the murder capital of Jamaica remains in St. James, with 335 recorded homicides for the year.

Ironically, its capital city Montego Bay, is known as the tourism capital of Jamaica.

Contrasting St James and Portland

Contrast St. James and Portland, which is the most peaceful (least homicidal) parish in Jamaica. Portland recorded ‘only’ 8 murders for the year. St. James therefore has 327 (4088%) more murders than Portland.

Trelawny in 3-way tie

Here in our Trelawny parish, we are in a 3-way tie with St. Mary and St. Thomas for second safest parish, with 21 recorded murders.

Trelawny reduced its figures by 5, from 26 murders in 2016.

Island-wide Increase in Murders

Island-wide, 233 more persons were killed last year than in 2016, which is a 19.4 per cent increase. In fact, of 19 divisions, only 5 recorded reductions in murder over the previous year. These were St. Catherine North, Kingston Central, St. Mary, Portland and Trelawny.

Rural vs Metropolitan Areas

Rural divisions recorded 911 murders compared with 705 in metropolitan division. However, there has been a surge in homicides in the  corporate area.

St. Andrew South, for example, recorded 67 more murders year over year, to mark a 73% spike over 2016. St. Andrew North is even worse, with a 142% increase. In Kingston Eastern, it is 81% increase.

The bright spark for the corporate area is Kingston Central, which recorded a 49% decrease.

Area One Statistics

The area one police division, which comprises Trelawny, St. James, Hanover and Westmoreland has recorded 564 murders. Trelawny contributed only 3.7% to that figure.

Here is the rank by division. Below that table you may view another showing the rank per parish.

Low Clear-Up Rate

The really sad thing about Jamaica’s murders, is that only 29% were cleared up in 2017. This means a suspect was either arrested or killed.

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2017 Murders by Parish

The  2017 murders by parish shows St James once again on top.

When one adds all the divisions in the metropolitan areas, we see St. Andrew making a big surge in national ranking with a 73% increase over 2016. This is by far, the highest increase of any parish. The 292 murders makes St Andrew the second most homicidal parish in the nation.

It is followed by St. Catherine (which includes Portmore and Spanish Town). This parish managed to more or less stabilize their homicide rate, recording only 2 more homicides than the previous year.

Kingston comes 4th, having 13 more murders in 2017 than in 2016.

Here are the rankings parish by parish.

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