KINGSTON – The ability, capacity, and aptitude of criminal investigators – who are already feared and distrusted by a huge chunk of the populace – are under intense scrutiny as the same tragic story is being told again and again and with terrifying frequency: people being murdered and their murderers getting away with their crimes.
“The conviction rate for murder has been less than five per cent per year,” said Clayton. “This also means that someone believed to be a murderer is about three times more likely to be killed and about five times more likely to be acquitted than they are to be sentenced,” he added.
Of the 1,056 murders reported by the Jamaica Constabulary Force Serious Crimes Review as having been committed in Jamaica up to November 16 this year, only 426, or 29 per cent, were reported as being cleared up, leaving the perpetrators of the remaining 630, or 71 per cent, free to perpetrate more atrocities.
Clayton noted that the term “cleared up” simply means that the killers have been identified.
Clayton noted that of the 39 per cent cleared up between 2004 and 2010, 88 per cent were cleared up when the suspected murderers were themselves killed, either in reprisals, fights with the police, or were acquitted by the courts.
Describing the cleared-up data as “numerical gymnastics”, Derrick Smith, the opposition spokesman on national security, has vowed to mount pressure on National Security Minister Peter Bunting to do something about the “frightening figures”.
Smith said the murder rate has already soared past last year’s levels.
But Clayton indicated that while the police force has invested significantly in training, especially over the last two years, this will take time to feed through into improved results.
“It is also important to improve investigative and forensic capabilities and the processes for managing the chain of evidence from the crime scene to the court,” added Clayton.