Crime on the rise as Jamaica's new prime minister takes office

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) -- The 22-year-old man was only fixing a rusted steel fence -- but even that was too risky on a hot afternoon in Trenchtown, Jamaica.

"A car just drove by and sprayed him," Detective Sgt. Derek Addison said matter-of-factly as he and another officer collected spent shell casings from the crumbling sidewalk.

The attack that sent the man to a hospital with a bullet wound in his thigh came a day after a tense September 3 national election that ended the ruling party's nearly 20-year hold on power.

It was the type of seemingly random violence common in Jamaica's poorest districts, where relentless gang strife -- some of it linked to the island's politics -- is on the rise.

Bruce Golding, the new prime minister sworn in Tuesday, is pledging a tougher approach. He says he wants to resume executions, provide officers with better forensic training and equipment, deploy more police to trouble spots and modernize a backlogged judicial system.

Golding says he also favors addressing crime's "social causes" by creating jobs and improving basic services to troubled areas. But he also acknowledges that crime has become so pervasive in the poorest parts of the capital -- with some 60 percent of homicides going unsolved -- that many people have lost hope.

"If somebody kills your son, you mourn him, you bury him and you get on with your life," he said in an interview. "You don't pursue justice because you don't expect to receive justice."

Over the first eight months of this year, homicides are up 12 percent and shootings are up 9 percent, compared to the same period in 2006, according to the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

The crime rise is a setback for police, who had been making progress in reducing the bloodshed after a record-breaking year for killings in 2005 placed Jamaica, with a population of about 2.8 million, among the most violent nations in the world.

Some of the challenges were on display at the Trenchtown shooting.

Before two officers, equipped with little more than yellow crime-scene tape, reached the scene, neighbors bundled the victim off to a hospital, not bothering to wait for an ambulance that might never come. Everyone else vanished down side streets barricaded with junked cars and steel barrels intended to block outsiders.

Addison said he did not expect to find witnesses. He and the junior officer with him also did not plan to linger long in a place where people have been known to stone the police or shoot at their cars.

West Kingston, which includes Trenchtown, is the epicenter of the increased violence. The area, with block after block of small concrete shacks with rusting steel roofs, has seen homicides nearly double to 95 compared to this point last year, police said.

Many people in Kingston blame the crime on a dismal economy that produces few jobs and drives Jamaicans to flee the country in droves to look for work abroad.

"Most of the kids aren't working. They are just standing on the corner doing nothing," said Frederick Russell, a 50-year-old store owner.

After Jamaica posted a record of 1,671 homicides in 2005, authorities cracked down on drug trafficking and gangs and the number of killings fell 20 percent in 2006. The violence is largely confined to urban ghettos, with only one tourist slain last year and none so far in 2007.

Deputy Commissioner Mark Shields attributes some of the 2006 improvement to a "hot spots" initiative, in which authorities quickly analyze incident data and immediately dispatch extra forces where needed.

But Shields said this year's efforts have been "severely hampered" by the need to handle security during the Caribbean-wide Cricket World Cup, the investigation into the death of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer, Hurricane Dean in August and the September 3 general election.

Police estimate that about half the killings involve Jamaica's numerous gangs. A small number are thought to be attacks and counterattacks by supporters of the country's two main political factions, Golding's Jamaica Labor Party and the People's National Party, which had been in power for 18 years until this month's election.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, politicians encouraged -- and some say armed -- Kingston street gangs to intimidate opponents and rustle up votes. Hundreds of people were killed as a result.

The two factions still control whole neighborhoods, but this year there only scattered killings and shootings before and after the balloting.

The young man shot in Trenchtown may have been one of those attacks.

"I assume it's linked to the election," Addison said. "But we may never know." E-mail to a friend

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