It was said Kingston is safer than London &other developed countries? What do you think about that statement ?

Question

I read an interesting article today that named Kingston as the 31st most dangerous city in the world. Being from Kingston, this intrigued me. The article went on to say that Kingston although dangerous is less dangerous than more developed countries.

On Answers, everyone in the Jamaican forum seems to "know" about the violence in Jamaica. What do you feel about this article? What is creating the violence? Is it really dancehall music? I am including some of the article in this posting.

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Jamaica-More murders than square mile!

Instead of the level of crime in Jamaica being reduced it seems to be aggressively increasing. According to The Gleaner, the Global Ratings Agency has ranked Kingston as the 31st most dangerous city in the world to live in. This report was issued earlier this month. Jamaica is a small island yet the level of crime committed in our island reflects that of a larger country.

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Answer 1

bob d iz so rite

Answer 2

What Jamaicans ( on here ) fail to understand is SIMPLE: You say theres crime in every country...true enough...but your population is SMALL at just under 3 million....thats the size of a medium city in the states, and theres 80 murders commited EVERY MONTH IN JA ! You'll NEVER EVER see 80 murders a month commited in ANY city in the states....

Period...end of story .

Answer 3

The person who made that statement about kingston vs London WAS NOT A JAMAICAN.

Mark Shields was sent to Jamaica by the UK to "help reduce crime in Jamaica". He has found that Jamaica is VERY different from what the UK government originally perceived.

The FACT is that more than 50% of the serious crime in Jamaica is gang related. If you are not somehow involved in gang activities, your risk level goes down DRAMATICALLY. The suggestion is that your true risk level in Kingston is NOT higher than in London or New York. I definately agree.

EDIT:  

MARK SHIELDS is independently qualified to speak the TRUTH about crime in Jamaica. He is also qualified to speak about police brutality in the Jamaican context. Perhaps some people need to stop CHATTING s*** and go study the statistics, the way HE HAS. Stop parading your narrow and uninformed opinion as 'facts'.

Answer 4

Just comparing knife incidents.

Looking through a few items here I find 28 teenagers as having been stabbed in London in the first 5 months of 2008. Admittedly that's only a report on teenagers but it is also total reported stabbings and not necessarily resulting in a murder.

For 2006 the total murder rate for Kingston was 1,669 with 15% commited by knife. I figure that's about 250 that did result in murder. Sorry if my math is wrong, I'm sleepy. But it's hardly a comparison is it?

In reality it is clear that there can be huge differences in crimes from one part of a city to another let alone between countries. Having been born 25 miles south of London, UK and now living 25 miles south Detroit and can say I've been quite aware of this for some time now. However, the first thing that struck me when I first visited Caribbean area (Puerto Rico) was the number of houses with almost prison like bars on the windows! That tells me a lot right there about how they feel but it felt safe enough to me. Admittedly when I got lost driving across the hills I put off asking the way from a gang of men wielding machetes, but when I saw the overloaded trucks down the road I realized they were just sugar cane harvesters LOL.

Answer 5

Well we have to look at all statistics and keep them in perspective.  

1.  Jamaica is a small country and Kingston a relatively small city.  So if we consider per capita population and poverty they might be right.

2.  My personal opinion is that we live what we learn.  Decent affordable education for children is newly implemented compared to developed nations.  We are going to have to see a few generations educated, who understand the importance of global education and a global economy and are able to share that with their own children.  I have been working with some schools in K13 on the importance of educating illiterate parents.  We can't send homework to be done if it's frustrating the parents.

3.  It's simple - poverty is creating the violence.  If we look at the US & UK the one thing that was nearly always provided was food and shelter.  D*&^ if I had to go to sleep hungry in a tin shanty during a storm I'd be violent too.  In turn I would do whatever possible to change that.

I am an American of Jamaican descent.  I try to keep up to date, travel home often, make my daughter very aware of the culture and struggles; at the same time start to recognize the process of becoming a developed nation.  Education is of course #1.  But the country needs to promote more than just Ochi and MoBay for tourism.  In my opinion the best beach in JA is Hellshire.  Promote the great nightlife of New Kingston. The country also needs to make it easier for educated people to return and live a decent lifestyle.  I have an MA in education and working on a PhD and can't find decent employment.  And probably the hardest thing is make the J more valuable.  I am not an economist, but in the US when we are going through a recession Alan Greenspan changes the mortgage rate, the president sends tax checks, etc.

After I finished I read stingjam's post.  Was this the same guy who posted the clip on YouTube about increasing police brutality, but didn't give any explanation, just showed the police and the shells on the ground?  If so, they should keep him the H*&^ out.