Prime Minister Andrew Holness has announced several states of emergency (SOEs) across a number of police divisions, despite reasonable “success” of the previous imposed emergency measures.
The SOEs have been declared in the Western Jamaica parishes of St James, Westmoreland and Hanover.
The emergency measure has also been imposed in the parishes of St Ann, Clarendon, St Catherine and the entire parishes of Kingston and St Andrew.
Holness noted that the threat level from organised crime remains, especially given the ongoing holiday period.
“While we have had reasonable success in controlling the number of murders leading up and during the Christmas season, the threat levels for ongoing gang conflicts and contract killings, organised robberies of businesses, hijacking of goods in transit, and various scams that lead ultimately to the loss of life, spreading fear, and depriving their entire communities of freedom… remains elevated and extensive in scale,” Holness explained.
He said that 127 murders were committed in December last year, for example.
The prime minister said the measures have resulted in the lives of Jamaicans being saved this year.
“We will use the SOEs when necessary… We are and we will continue to use all lawful powers within our means to control crime and to save lives,” said Holness.
For his part, Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson revealed that the country was recording up to four murders per day.
However, the police have managed to reduced that to an 2.5 per day through the SOEs, police intervention measures, and new legislation, among them being the new Firearms Act.
The SOEs will last for the next 14 days, or if the measure has been extended by the Parliament and Senate.
