KINGSTON, Jamaica — For most of the past two decades, the weekly murder count was one of the grimmest rituals of Jamaican public life. Every Monday the police figures arrived, the newspapers printed them, and the country braced for the next week. In 2017, 1,647 people were killed, more than 30 a week, in a country of fewer than three million.
Last year the number fell to 675, about 13 a week. It was the lowest total in more than 30 years, and below even 1994, when about 690 people died. This year the fall has continued: by 6 October, 407 people had been murdered, against 534 at the same point in 2025. The three months from July to September, with 123 killings, were the quietest quarter in more than three decades.
Those figures, from the police, the Planning Institute of Jamaica and the Ministry of National Security, are now gathered in one place in the new Jamaica Crime Stats reference from Jamaica Homes. Together they describe the steepest fall in violence Jamaica has seen in decades, and a set of questions it has not yet answered: why it is happening, whether it will last, and at what cost.
From 1,647 to 675
Measured against population, the change is starker still. In 2017 Jamaica recorded about 60 murders for every 100,000 people, one of the highest rates in the world. In 2025 the rate was 24.4. Murders fell by 18 per cent in 2024 and then by 41 per cent in 2025, the steepest annual drop of the past decade. Seventeen of the island’s 19 police divisions recorded fewer killings than the year before.
| Year | Murders | Change | Per 100,000 people |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 1,647 | ▲ 21.6% | 60.1 |
| 2022 | 1,508 | ▲ 2.3% | 54.4 |
| 2023 | 1,393 | ▼ 7.6% | 50.3 |
| 2024 | 1,141 | ▼ 18.1% | 41.3 |
| 2025 | 675 | ▼ 40.8% | 24.4 |
| 2026 to 6 Oct | 407 | ▼ 23.8% | – |
Rates calculated by Jamaica Homes using STATIN and PIOJ population figures; see the Jamaica Population by Parish page. The 2026 change compares the same period of 2025.
Even now, Jamaica is far from safe by international standards. A rate of 24.4 is still about four times the world average of roughly six per 100,000. But for a country that has spent much of its independence among the most violent nations on earth, the trajectory is unfamiliar territory.
What is driving it
The government has not published a full account of why the killings have fallen so fast, and the honest answer is that no single explanation fits. Gangs have long been blamed for more than 60 per cent of Jamaica’s homicides, and the Minister of National Security, Dr Horace Chang, has pointed to the number of known killers who are now in prison or have left the island. The improvement began well before the September 2025 general election and continued after it.
The trend is also not confined to murder. In 2025, shootings fell by 30.8 per cent to 696 and reported rapes by 26.3 per cent. In the first five months of 2026, shootings were down a further 31 per cent and major crimes overall by about a fifth. When the first-quarter figures for 2025 arrived, Police Commissioner Dr Kevin Blake described them as the most substantial reduction in major crimes the force had seen since 2001.
Not every crime is falling
The good news has not reached every household. While violent crime fell in 2025, property crime rose: robberies were up 8.5 per cent and break-ins 17 per cent, and aggravated assaults climbed 41 per cent. The Planning Institute counted 1,195 victims of break-ins during the year. For homeowners, that is a reminder that the national murder figures and the feeling of safety on a particular street are not the same thing. Break-ins have since turned down, falling 11 per cent in the first five months of 2026, with robberies down 25 per cent.
| Crime, 2025 | Number | Change on 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Murder | 675 | ▼ 41.0% |
| Shooting | 696 | ▼ 30.8% |
| Rape | 325 | ▼ 26.3% |
| Aggravated assault | 465 | ▲ 41.3% |
| Robbery | – | ▲ 8.5% |
| Break-in | – | ▲ 17.0% |
Source: PIOJ, Economic and Social Survey Jamaica 2025. On this table, falls are shown in green and rises in red.
The map is shifting
Crime in Jamaica remains concentrated in the corridor that runs from Spanish Town through Kingston. St Andrew, St Catherine and Kingston accounted for 45 per cent of serious crimes in 2025 and half of all victims, roughly in line with the 44 per cent of the population who live there. In 2025 the deadliest police divisions were St Andrew South, with 74 murders by 20 December, followed by St Catherine North (63), St Ann (60), St James (52) and St Catherine South (50). St Ann and St Thomas were the only divisions where killings rose.
This year the centre of gravity has moved west. St James has recorded more murders than any other division in 2026, with 35 by 20 June against 26 a year earlier, while St Andrew South is down by almost half. Manchester’s murders were up 180 per cent at the start of May, from a small base. Westmoreland, by contrast, has seen a sharp fall. In the west, the recovery from Hurricane Melissa, which devastated the western parishes, among them Westmoreland, St Elizabeth, St James and Hanover, in October 2025, is unfolding alongside the shift in violence.
The cost: more police killings
As murders have fallen, killings by the police have risen. INDECOM, the independent body that investigates the security forces, recorded 311 people fatally shot by police in 2025, up 65 per cent from 189 a year earlier. That is the equivalent of almost half the number of murders committed that year. By early October 2026, at least 231 more people had been killed by police.
Dr Chang has argued that fewer murders will in time mean fewer confrontations with armed men, and accepted in Parliament that one or two recent incidents may be questionable. INDECOM has said it is troubled by the rise. How the state answers those questions will shape whether Jamaicans see the fall in violence as a lasting improvement in public safety or as one form of violence giving way to another.
Why it matters beyond the headlines
Crime has long been the first thing visitors, investors and returning residents ask about Jamaica. Tourism, which brought in about US$4.3 billion in 2024 and is still rebuilding after the hurricane, depends on how safe the island feels to the travellers who book it; see our Jamaica Tourism Stats. For families deciding where to buy or build, the parish and division figures matter as much as the national total; our Jamaica Housing Stats page sets out what homes cost and where.
What to watch
If the pace of the third quarter holds, 2026 will end with roughly 520 to 530 murders, by Jamaica Homes’ calculation, another sharp fall and the fewest in decades. The tests ahead are whether the decline survives a full year of hurricane recovery in the west, whether property crime keeps falling, and whether police killings come down as the minister expects. The Planning Institute’s full crime chapter for 2026, due next summer, and a complete police division table would answer much of that. Jamaica Homes will update its Jamaica Crime Stats page every October.
Key figures
| Murders, 2025 | 675 |
| Murders, 2017 (recent peak) | 1,647 |
| Murder rate per 100,000, 2025 | 24.4 |
| Murders, 2026 to 6 October | 407 (down 24%) |
| Murders, July–September 2026 | 123, lowest quarter in 30+ years |
| Shootings, 2025 | 696 (down 30.8%) |
| Break-ins, 2025 | up 17% |
| People fatally shot by police, 2025 | 311 (up 65%) |
Sources: Planning Institute of Jamaica, Economic and Social Survey Jamaica 2025 (via Jamaica Observer); Jamaica Constabulary Force figures as reported by The Gleaner (December 2025 to October 2026); Ministry of National Security statements to Parliament (October 2026); INDECOM (via The Gleaner); OSAC, Jamaica Country Security Report (2024); Caribbean National Weekly (April 2025). Full source list on the Jamaica Crime Stats page.
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