A routine sitting of Jamaica’s Upper House turned into a heated pre-election slug-fest on Friday, as lawmakers sparred over three pieces of anti-crime legislation and—more pointedly—over who deserves credit for the country’s falling murder rate.
The Government benches, buoyed by a reported 44 per cent slide in homicides since January, framed the figures as proof positive that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has earned an unprecedented third consecutive term. Government Senator Charles Sinclair argued that “decades-high investments—roughly $80 billion so far—in people, hardware and technology have finally bent the crime curve,” adding that swapping either Prime Minister Andrew Holness or National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang would be “rank folly.”
Opposition Senators were having none of it. Peter Bunting—once the island’s security minister and now the People’s National Party’s (PNP) point-man on crime—counter-punched with a grim tally: more than 12,000 murders between 2016 and 2024 under the Holness Administration. A single semester’s dip, he argued, “doesn’t rewrite history.” Bunting credited the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) and its new Commissioner Dr Kevin Blake, not the politicians, for this year’s decline.
Government freshman Abka Fitz-Henley blasted back, calling Bunting’s legacy “a monument to failure” and citing the 1989-2005 era—spanning four PNP terms—when more than 13,000 Jamaicans were slain and the island earned the dubious title of “murder capital of the world.” Statistics, he warned, must be handled “like scalpels, not sledgehammers.”
Beyond the political theatrics, the Senate approved amendments to:
- Offences Against the Person Act – lengthening sentences when children are murder victims.
- Child Care and Protection Act – ensuring child offenders remain shielded from adult capital-murder penalties even if they turn 18 before trial.
- Criminal Justice (Administration) Act – procedural tweaks to streamline serious-crime prosecutions.
Leader of Government Business Kamina Johnson Smith said the changes “give legislative teeth to society’s horror when our children are harmed.” Opposition Senator Lambert Brown bristled at mandatory sentencing and taunted the Government for delaying a general election he insists voters “cannot wait” to call.
As tempers cooled and the gavel fell, one truth lingered: the numbers may be trending in the right direction, but in an election year, statistics are never just statistics—they’re ammunition.
