New ministry coming to tackle violence

A new government ministry will be created to focus on the reduction of violence in the society.

The ministry, which Prime Minister Andrew Holness said could be called the ministry of peace and human development, will pull together all agencies dealing with families, communities and social development. It will be charged with lowering the level of violence in the society, a task that now falls to the Ministry of National Security.

Holness, in using the platform of the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) 80th annual conference at the National Stadium in St Andrew, said the level of violence in the country is at epidemic levels.

"Jamaica is not a country at war, [but] our homicide rate, our death due to violence, equates with countries that are at war," Holness said.

He said that the Government is putting measures in place to deal with "the unabated violence that is like a disease, like an epidemic in our society". The prime minister said that his government has commissioned a study expects to get the results by years end.

"When that study comes in, we are going to reorganise the Government to create and bring all the agencies that deal with families, communities, social development, parenting ... We are going to bring all of them together under one ministry. I'm thinking of calling it the ministry of peace and human development, but maybe that won't be the name. But we need a ministry that is focused on reducing the level of violence in our society," Holness said.

He continued: "The violence is at an intolerable level and it is changing the character and nature of the Jamaican people. It is reducing the quality of our lives and it is making us aggressive with each other".