COMMUNITY VIOLENCE

Violence and Development

MS. NICOLA SATCHELL

ID #: 620069872
Name: Huntley Williams
 Community is a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common

characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the

larger society while violence can be described as the intentional use of physical force or power,

threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either

results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm,

maldevelopment, or deprivation.

Therefore, Community violence can be defined as exposure to intentional acts of

interpersonal violence committed in public areas by individuals who are not intimately related to

the victim. there are many types of violence that can be community violence, such as, bullying,

gang war, public shootings, civil war, assault, trauma, homicide, sexual assault. Even though

some traumas may be accidental it is not considered form of community violence unless it is

intentional. Community Violence is the intentional attempt to hurt one or more people. Jamaica

have been plagued by this sort of violence due to the drugs for guns trade. The government have

tried but still make remarkably policies and strategies in minimizing this issue.

The Caribbean in general have seen significant increase of interpersonal violence over the

years. Per UN Crime Trends Survey and Interpol, 2002 or most recent year, the Caribbean had

the highest crime rate per 100,000, which stood at 30 per 100,000 and over the years this number

as increased. The report released by the united nation on drugs and violent crime in the

Caribbean and Latin America tried to explain the prevalence of the violence in the Caribbean as a

part of the Caribbean being underdeveloped. It further state that the poorer the country the more

crime and violence. Hence, it presented data that showed Haiti as having crime rate of

approximately 40 homicides per 100,000 with of GDP of approximately 2000 per capita. Similar

reports for Jamaica with a slightly higher GDP of about 4500 per capita. However, the same
graph showed that countries such as Trinidad and Barbados which have significantly higher

GDPs per capita had way fewer homicides per 100,000. Thus, one main driver that directly

affects community violence is poverty. The risk factors associated with community violence are

the individual the community, and societal levels. Hence the above driver in which the poorer the

individual the higher likelihood of violence, the same is true for the community where they are

more young unemployed men there is always a higher risk of homicides and robberies. One

would think that the higher societal level one acquires is the less likely of violence. This is true

based on the community level in which the richer the community or the more upscale the

community is there is less likely violence but or more faced with property crimes.

The quest for money in the inner cities of Jamaica have also added to the much public

shootings, gang violence and the increase in homicide. This readily seen in the parish of St.

James where the illicit Lottery Scam as resulted with St. James being the murder capital of

Jamaica with the homicide rate of over 200 in a 10-month period. Also drugs have played a

major role in the crime situation has the most prominent drug lord becomes a DON and is

responsible for his community. This becomes the root of gang warfare for turfs (different

communities). This have become even bigger problem when politicians decide to help these

DONS. Currently Spanish Town another community where gang fight is on the rise saw a wave

of public shooting as the one of the Don was murdered. The was significant trauma to people in

and around Spanish Town as voice recordings were released about the shooting and that there

would be a wave of shooting in the area. The clippings went further to warn community

members that they should not visit the area unless it was entirely necessary. Even though such

gangs are not politically funded anymore they are still strongly politically aligned. As a result of

such actions the Government have taken significant action in trying to minimize the incidence of
public shootings and as such sent peacemakers in to communities to aid in resolving the issue

without brute force.

Most of the Caribbean and Latin America is underdeveloped or developing countries and

as illustrated by WHO (World Health Organization), this region has the highest murders per

100,000 in 2012. The figure was 28.7 per 100,000 in the area doubling the rate in Africa and

almost quadrupling the global rate at 6.9 per 100,000. The results of some other nations near the

Caribbean were also stated as well as a general comparison with the Caribbean states. The

highest WHO-estimated homicide rates were in Honduras (103.9 per 100,000), Venezuela (57.6

per 100,000), Jamaica (45.1), and Belize (44.7). All the above mentioned are developing

countries and have significantly high violence rates. The highest estimated rates of homicide by

firearms were in Venezuela (90%), Guatemala (86%), Honduras (84%), and Trinidad and Tobago

(77%). Firearms were also predominantly used in intimate partner homicides in the Americas.

Both globally and in the Americas, 30 per cent of women reported having experienced physical

or sexual violence, or both, at some point in their lives. Caribbean destinations with murder rates

about the same as that in the U.S. (under 10 per 100,000) include Martinique, Anguilla, Antigua

& Barbuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Cuba, Guadeloupe, Haiti, and Turks

& Caicos. The rest of the Caribbean nations fall somewhere in the middle (e.g. between 10 and

20 murders per 100,000), according to data from the United Nations.

While these statistics are alarming when compared to the United States or England it

should be noted that Caribbean states are much smaller and as such murders will easily affect the

rate unlike the US where some states have higher rates than most Caribbean countries, the

overall number is lower seen that the population of the US in quite larger than the Caribbean.
 The issue of violence what have Jamaica done to reduce violence? To what extent has

these methods help in reducing violence? What can be done to prevent or minimize the issue?

The prievious government has implemented new bills and have also developed new bills in

parliament to fight crime. The first bill to be drafted is the bill of Organized/Anti-Gang

Legislation, this bill is an omnibus legislation targeting diverse and increasing range of criminal

activities that will give us the means to target and dismantle criminal networks. They also have a

list of other bills to be drafted such as

DNA bill, enhance the polices investigative capacity, as well as provide a real alternative

to the use of witnesses in serious violent cases.

Proposed Anti-Gang Legislation will also be revisited, while Cabinet is expected to issue

drafting instructions for enactment of the new Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) Bill,

which will accelerate the process of culture change to achieve organizational and

procedural reforms in line with modern policing services.

They also established policies to combat crime and minimize the occurrence of police fatalities

as well as to minimize corruption in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). In wave of the recent

threats and violence they have special trained teams going in to communities to speak with gangs

as not to retaliate to violence and this have also aided in a reduction of community violence.

Evidently more can be done to reduce the violent crimes such as;

laws and programmes to reduce access to firearms;

school-based programmes to teach children and adolescents "life-skills" such as non-

violent conflict resolution;

efforts to change gender norms that are supportive of violence against women;
programmes to improve parenting in families at risk of violence; and
public information campaigns to prevent elder abuse.
Violence is a very serious issue where the Caribbean is concerned, there is a lot of work that

needs to be done to reduce violence. Jamaica on a hold is behind in fighting this issue and as

such as one of the highest homicide rates at 40.2 per 100,000 recorded in 2012 and the

government should try its best to regulate and find new policies and to make amendments to

the existing ones to encapsulate the change in violence. The government has made significant

steps such as creating a bill to put an end to lottery scam and this have proven efficient as

lottery scammers are faced with serious jail time and or extradition, this new policy may

serve as a deterrent to the rational thinkers. The decrease of lottery scamming will then have

a domino effect on violence in which lottery scammers kill one another because of greed.

Hence, stopping the illicit activity stops the violence. This approach is very useful in

minimizing. Community violence is faced by every state but with proper policies,

government and less corrupt law enforcers then it can be controlled at minimal level.

Reference
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B. (2013). Strategies put in Place to Tackle Crime and Violence - Jamaica Information

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tackle-crime-and-violence/

NEW STUDY HIGHLIGHTS NEED TO SCALE UP VIOLENCE PREVENTION ... (n.d.).

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http://www.neurosciencesjournal.org/PDFFILES/Jan15/22NSJJan2015WHONewPg82-

83.pdf

Friday, December 12, 2014 . (n.d.). Countries in Latin America, Caribbean have world's

highest homicide rates - News. Retrieved November 16, 2016, from

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/NEWS/Countries-in-Latin-America--Caribbean-have-

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