Yaneek Page | Ja’s crime rate nears Costa Rica’s, but growth promise unfulfilled

There are few instances in economic life when the business community can expect a tangible return on an external shift without cutting another cheque, and the dramatic fall in Jamaica’s murder rate ought rightly to be one of them.

For decades, enterprises across this country have paid a steep, involuntary “crime tax” in inflated security budgets, restrictive operating hours, fortified storefronts, and punitive insurance premiums, among others. While a portion of these costs has inevitably been passed on to consumers, the broader toll has been devastating: reduced competitiveness, eroded margins, and a friction-filled customer experience that hinders growth.

The frequently cited thesis that reducing Jamaica’s homicide rate to Costa Rica’s level could add several percentage points to annual growth stems from a World Bank/UNODC cross-country model built on data from 1975 - 2000.

Today, in a historic departure from past norms, Jamaica is on track to close 2026 with a homicide rate of approximately 18 to 20 per 100,000. Costa Rica, which recorded a rate of 16.8 in 2025, is currently tracking at approximately 15 to 16. Jamaica is, therefore, moving remarkably close to Costa Rica’s present level. Notably, however, it hasn’t yet reached the much lower Costa Rican rate of approximately 8.1 used in the original World Bank model.

It is entirely reasonable, therefore, for business owners to expect the financial shackles of the past to begin loosening. Yet this long-promised dividend has failed to register in the national indicators we currently track. Even more troubling is that nobody can say with confidence whether it is reaching individual company balance sheets because Jamaica has not established any mechanism for measuring that transmission.

In fact, instead of a surge in commercial optimism, the latest data shows Jamaica’s national business confidence index sliding 6.5 per cent from the previous quarter to 124 points - far below the 140 points recorded in 2023. The context here is critical: we are witnessing a decisive turn in one of the greatest generational crises facing this nation, yet local enterprises are actively pulling back. Squeezed by rising utility bills, elevated input costs, thinner profit margins, and a protracted recovery from Hurricane Melissa, businesses are absorbing new headwinds rather than celebrating relief. If the crime dividend were arriving on schedule, this is not what the ledger would look like.

What remains unproven is whether fewer homicides are changing how a Jamaican business allocates capital, structures daily operations, hires staff, or evaluates new locations. For years, we have quoted growth projections and cost estimates as if they were live, operational indicators. We are now confronting the fact that these models were never designed to function as real-time forecasts of the Jamaican economy.

The IMF’s more conservative projection of an additional 0.4 - 0.5 percentage points of annual growth is methodologically stronger and attempts to separate the effect of crime from the effects of weak economic performance. But it still cannot provide what Jamaican businesses now need: a timetable or transmission mechanism. It estimates an average macroeconomic effect. It doesn’t tell us when an insurer will lower a premium, when a retailer will extend its opening hours, or what a hardware store owner in Spanish Town is doing with their security budget this year.

Now that it is clear that neither figure offers a reliable countdown to prosperity, the critical question must be asked: What will it actually take for the business community to cash in on this crime dividend? What specific conditions are required to instil the level of confidence that triggers a real, operational transformation in how we do business?

Measuring Yesteryear’s Crime Tax

Part of the reason the dividend remains elusive is that we are attempting to evaluate today’s progress using vintage data. The figures routinely cited to illustrate the “crime tax” on Jamaican business, small firms spending 17-18 per cent of revenue on security, or crime shaving up to 5 per cent off national GDP, trace largely to a business survey conducted in 2001 and estimates of the economic cost of crime in that same year, published in 2003 and repeatedly cited in later international reports.

In practice, every time we calculate what businesses stand to gain from falling crime, we are quoting baseline figures gathered before the global financial crisis, through three changes of administration, and long before the current security breakthrough began. Nobody has returned to small and medium enterprises to measure whether security expenditure as a share of revenue has actually moved. Closing this analytical gap requires minimal effort. The Jamaica Chamber of Commerce already executes a respected quarterly confidence survey. Adding a single standing metric that tracks security costs as a percentage of revenue against quarterly crime metrics may help test theoretical models against operational realities.

Until that empirical work is done, macro pressures will continue to mask any underlying safety gains. Foreign direct investment shows a similar disconnect. Bank of Jamaica data indicate that FDI inflows fell to approximately US$80 million in the first quarter of 2026, compared with US$101 million during the corresponding period of 2025. This occurred precisely as Jamaica was recording its steepest decline in murders. A single quarter does not establish a long-term trend, but it reinforces the point – lower homicide doesn’t automatically convert into immediate investment surge. Other factors continue to weigh heavily on capital decisions.

Setting a New Goalpost

What has now been revealed is a fundamental policy blind spot. We have treated the national murder rate as though it was the main driving factor of the economic scoreboard. But what other operational threats motivate security spending? That conversation must shift from passive expectation to active inquiry. And it may be time to define a new set of goalposts and ask harder questions.

Equally, the business community must turn the mirror on itself and ask: What is our threshold for action?

Decades of operating in a high-crime environment have conditioned Jamaican firms to default to defence, fortifying premises, restricting operating hours, and budgeting for risk as a permanent fixed cost. But as the security landscape undergoes a generational shift, holding onto a hyper-cautious posture carries its own trade penalty. Let me hasten to add: businesses can’t be expected to dismantle their defences on good faith. They need accurate parish-level commercial-crime data, evidence of sustained reductions in robbery and extortion, credible police response times, and a measurable reaction from insurers, etc. Notwithstanding, business leaders should be required to identify the thresholds that would trigger action. If those conditions are met, what expenditure will they redirect, what hours will they extend, and what investments will they finally release?

A safer Jamaica is an essential foundation, but safety alone does not automatically generate prosperity. If the State can count every murder, it can also count whether fewer murders are reducing the cost of doing business. Until then, the “crime dividend” remains a national promise that nobody can audit.

One love,

Yaneek Page is the program lead for Market Entry USA and a certified trainer in Entrepreneurship.