Dean Jones | Safety, justice and home

Jamaica’s latest argument over illegal firearms is taking place in courtrooms, Parliament and the legal profession, but its consequences reach much further.

They reach into communities where families are deciding whether it is safe to build. They reach overseas Jamaicans deciding whether to return home. They reach buyers choosing between a standalone house and a gated development. And they reach investors calculating whether Jamaica represents opportunity, risk, or some combination of both.

Defence attorneys have begun withdrawing legal services from criminal courts as part of an escalating dispute over the Firearms (Prohibition, Restriction and Regulation) Act, 2022, particularly its mandatory minimum sentences.

At first glance, the argument can sound simple: lawyers want the law softened while the Government wants tougher punishment.

The reality is considerably more complicated.

The Jamaican Bar Association and Advocates’ Association of Jamaica have said their objection is not to do away with serious punishment for serious firearm crimes. Their concerns include the restriction placed on judicial discretion, whether a mandatory sentence can become disproportionate in unusual cases, reduced incentives for defendants to plead guilty early, the treatment of imitation firearms and complications involving licensed firearm holders.

Among the reforms being proposed is an “exceptional circumstances” provision that would allow a judge greater discretion in particular cases.

That is materially different from abolishing serious penalties for gun crime.

But the Government is equally clear that it does not want reform to weaken what it regards as an important deterrent.

Justice Minister Delroy Chuck has said strong sentences should remain for serious firearm offences, particularly where a gun has been used during violent crime. At the same time, he has acknowledged that the Government is willing to examine exceptional cases, including circumstances involving imitation firearms or weapons that were not being used to commit another offence when discovered.

So Jamaica is not really debating whether illegal guns should carry consequences.

It is debating how much discretion a judge should have when the circumstances surrounding possession are dramatically different.

THE 15-YEAR QUESTION

The Firearms Act came into operation on November 1, 2022, replacing the previous 1967 legislation and substantially restructuring the regulation and punishment of firearm offences. Under the Act, possession of a firearm without the required authorisation is an offence, while specified offences carry severe mandatory sentencing provisions.

The controversy becomes easier to understand when actual cases are considered.

St James businessman Jason Barrett was sentenced in March 2024 to 15 years after pleading guilty to unauthorised possession of a firearm and ammunition. The firearm was licensed, but it belonged to his wife. His challenge to the constitutionality of the mandatory sentence is due before the Court of Appeal on October 26, 2026.

That case is now part of the broader debate about whether a sentencing regime should be capable of distinguishing between materially different forms of unlawful possession.

It is also why describing the lawyers’ position simply as an attempt to make Jamaica more tolerant of illegal guns misses an important part of their case.

At the other end of the argument sits Jamaica’s long and painful experience with firearm violence.

For decades, guns have been central to murders, robberies, gang activity and community intimidation. Against that background, Parliament deliberately introduced legislation with a powerful deterrent component.

The question facing Jamaica is whether exceptional judicial discretion can be introduced without undermining that deterrence.

CRIME IS FALLING SHARPLY

The debate is occurring at an extraordinary moment in Jamaica’s crime statistics.

According to Jamaica Constabulary Force data as at September 26, 2026, the country had recorded 392 murders compared with 515 during the corresponding period of 2025.

That is a fall of 24 per cent.

Shootings fell from 523 to 388, a reduction of 26 per cent. Robberies declined from 542 to 391, or 28 per cent, while the combined total for the serious crimes recorded in the JCF report fell from 2,730 to 2,174, approximately 20 per cent.

The direction of travel is unmistakable.

What is much harder to establish is exactly why.

Government representatives have argued that stronger laws, including the firearms legislation, form part of Jamaica’s improved security environment. Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness has previously placed deterrent legislation alongside intelligence, policing operations and anti-gang measures as elements of the wider crime strategy.

But falling murders cannot scientifically be assigned to one law.

Changes in policing, intelligence gathering, gang disruption, firearm seizures, prosecutions, community interventions and criminal networks may all be contributing.

That distinction is important because a correlation between tougher firearm penalties and falling crime is not by itself proof that one caused the other.

What can be said confidently is that Jamaica is presently experiencing a substantial reduction in several categories of serious crime, and any decision involving criminal justice policy is therefore being made against that changing background.

AND THIS IS WHERE PROPERTY ENTERS THE ARGUMENT

Crime has never been merely a policing issue for Jamaica.

It is an economic one.

World Bank analysis has repeatedly identified crime and violence as a constraint on Jamaican investment and economic growth. Crime raises operating costs, requires additional spending on security, affects productivity and can discourage investment altogether.

Those costs appear very visibly in real estate.

They appear in perimeter walls.

They appear in security guards.

They appear in electronic gates, cameras, controlled access, alarm systems and private patrols.

They also help explain why security has become part of the product being sold in sections of Jamaica’s housing market.

A buyer purchasing inside a gated development is not simply purchasing bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage.

They may also be purchasing predictability.

People often look at the price of a gated community and think they are paying only for the house. But part of that price is increasingly attached to the environment around the house. Controlled access, security, maintenance and the ability to leave a property unattended all carry value.

There is international research showing that enhanced community security can be reflected in residential prices, although such findings cannot automatically be transplanted onto Jamaica without local transaction-level research.

The broader economic connection, however, is well established.

Crime acts almost like an invisible surcharge. Where public security is regarded as insufficient, households and businesses frequently purchase additional security privately.

The homeowner pays for the gate.

The developer pays for the guardhouse.

The business pays for security officers.

The condominium owner pays through maintenance fees.

Eventually, somebody pays.

THE DIASPORA HAS BILLIONS OF REASONS TO CARE

This matters particularly because Jamaica is courting its diaspora as investors, homeowners and returning residents.

Property has become one of the clearest channels for diaspora investment. VM Group reported a 25 per cent increase in mortgage loans to diaspora real-estate investors between 2024 and 2025, alongside increased participation from overseas Jamaicans.

VM itself now markets an integrated property and mortgage service specifically around the ability of Jamaicans overseas to purchase, finance and manage property at home without needing to be permanently present on the island.

For those buyers, security is not an abstract national statistic.

Imagine somebody who has spent 25 or 30 years working in London, Toronto, New York or Miami.

They may have accumulated several hundred thousand US dollars.

They are considering retirement.

They may be choosing between buying in Jamaica, remaining overseas or dividing their time between both.

Their decision is unlikely to turn on a technical interpretation of section 45 of the Firearms Act.

Their question will be much simpler.

Will I feel safe?

The returning resident does not experience Jamaica through a crime spreadsheet. They experience it through whether they are comfortable driving home at night, whether they can leave a house for three months and return to it, whether their family feels secure and whether they believe the country is moving in the right direction.

That perception can sometimes lag behind reality.

Crime can fall substantially while Jamaica’s international reputation takes longer to change.

That creates an unusual opportunity.

If the reduction in violent crime proves sustainable, the economic dividend could extend far beyond fewer victims and fewer funerals.

It could change where people are prepared to invest.

THE BIGGEST PROPERTY GAIN MAY HAPPEN OUTSIDE THE GATES

This may ultimately be the most important real-estate consequence of a safer Jamaica.

The greatest victory would not necessarily be rising prices inside already expensive gated developments.

It would be greater confidence outside them.

Prime Minister Holness illustrated the development cost of insecurity in July when discussing the NHT’s Vineyard Town housing development. According to the Office of the Prime Minister, violence, gang activity and extortion disrupted construction and delayed the project for years. He used the development to argue that public safety is directly connected with national development and investment.

That principle extends across the housing market.

If a community becomes safer, land that buyers previously overlooked may become more attractive.

Families may become more willing to renovate inherited property.

Returning residents may feel more comfortable rebuilding family homes instead of automatically purchasing inside enclosed schemes.

Developers may consider locations previously treated as too risky.

Small businesses can operate for longer hours.

Insurance, security and construction decisions may change.

The economic benefit of crime reduction therefore has the potential to spread geographically.

A truly successful property market is not one where everybody who can afford security has to retreat behind a gate. Success is when more ordinary communities become places where people are comfortable buying, building, raising families and putting their savings to work.

BUT THE LAW STILL HAS TO BE JUST

None of this resolves the lawyers’ argument.

Nor should property investment become the test by which criminal sentencing is determined.

A justice system has obligations to victims, accused persons and the wider public.

There is a legitimate argument that illegal firearms require exceptionally strong deterrence in a country that has suffered heavily from gun violence.

There is also a legitimate legal question about whether every case captured by a statutory offence necessarily deserves exactly the same minimum punishment.

Those are not mutually exclusive propositions.

The Government has itself indicated that anomalies and exceptional circumstances can be examined. The legal organisations, meanwhile, have expressly said their objection is not to severe punishment itself but to a sentencing structure they believe can prevent judges from responding proportionately to different circumstances.

That may ultimately be where a workable reform lies.

Not in pretending that Jamaica no longer has a gun problem.

And not in pretending that every unlawful firearm case is identical.

JAMAICA HAS SOMETHING VALUABLE TO PROTECT

The most significant fact in this entire debate may not be the lawyers’ withdrawal, a politician’s statement or even one controversial 15-year sentence.

It may be that Jamaica has reached a moment when murders, shootings and robberies are all moving sharply downwards at the same time.

That progress deserves careful protection.

It also deserves careful analysis rather than easy explanations.

No reliable evidence presently proves that the 15-year mandatory minimum, by itself, produced the decline in murders.

Equally, there is no serious basis for treating national security as irrelevant to investment.

The World Bank has long identified crime as an obstacle to Jamaican investment, and in June 2026 the Government publicly argued that the fall in murders was helping improve investor confidence and Jamaica’s international image.

For property, that matters enormously.

Jamaica sells more than houses.

It sells the possibility of coming home.

It sells retirement.

It sells land on which somebody intends to build a future.

It sells an emotional connection to Jamaicans who may have spent half their lives somewhere else.

And ultimately, the strongest property market Jamaica can build will not depend on increasingly elaborate walls around individual developments.

It will depend on fewer Jamaicans feeling that they need those walls in the first place.

- Dean Jones is founder of Jamaica Homes. This article was first published by Jamaica Homes News at jamaica-homes.com. Email feedback to office@jamaica-homes.com and columns@gleanerjm.com. ONLINE ONLY COMMENTARY.