Government Senator Matthew Samuda has fired back at his Opposition counterpart, Senator Peter Bunting, who recently criticised the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF) statistics gathering technique, describing the former security minister comments as ‘unbecoming and vulgar’.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Bunting accused the Government of deliberately misrepresenting the true crime situation in the country by excluding criminal activities such as lottery scamming and cyber crimes from the annual crime reports.

He contended that while the figures indicate that major crimes saw a decline in 2023, if the statistics included scamming and cybercrime, which he describes as major crimes, the figures would be higher.

But Samuda said Bunting’s argument was not a true representation of the state of crime on the island.

“The shadow minister on everything has been using the word revisionist a lot recently. I caution him to stop attacking public servants and indeed national institutions. The attack on the Jamaica Constabulary Force for quantifying and documenting incidents of crime in the exact way it was done and tracked under his tenure is unbecoming and vulgar. The men and women of the JCF should take note,” said Samuda during a sitting of the Senate today.

“His tenure was not a success. He attacks the statistics because they do not show a Jamaica that was safer under his tenure,” the Government senator added.

Bunting held the position of Minister of National Security from 2012 to 2016. He then transitioned to the shadow minister of national security when his party lost the 2016 general elections. The Opposition senator is now shadows the citizen security and productivity portfolio.

During his remarks, Samuda shared that the use of the LAPOP or Don Anderson surveys of late 2015 and early 2016 would indicate that “the reason that [the Opposition] sit on that side is because of not just the appallingly high unemployment and poverty rates of 14 and 21 per cent, respectively, in 2015. But it was their management of the health sector and, indeed, the national security portfolio why they are over there.”

Samuda shared that since 2015, Jamaica has experienced a 35 per cent decline in rapes. Additionally, he noted that in 2015, Jamaica experienced 3,731 incidents of robberies and break-ins. However, in 2023, the JCF recorded 1,247 incidents of robberies and break-ins.

“My rough estimate is that reflects about a 55 per cent decline in acquisitory crime since Senator Bunting’s time. A safer Jamaica,” said Samuda.

Samuda emphasised that national security is the most challenging portfolio in Jamaica, particularly because of its geographic location, which places the island in the most violent region of the world, according to the global murder data.

“We are in the geographic centre of shipping for both guns and drugs, and the largest markets for both are all around us. Those factors, along with the general liberal outlook on justice in Jamaica, have caused a significant rise in gang-fueled violent crime since the 1990s. The country, though it has made significant strides in addressing this monster, has not yet returned to peace,” said Samuda.

According to the crime statistics provided by the JCF for 2023, all major crimes were down by 10.7 per cent compared to 2022. There were 1,393 murders recorded last year, a 7.8 per cent decline. Additionally, robberies, break-ins, and shootings all declined.

“Now the murder rate is unacceptable. No one is making or can make light of that. However, this administration is making the investments, the legislative changes necessary to fight the transnational gangs which maim and murder our people,” said Samuda.

He encouraged the opposition to continue to support the Government’s efforts, adding that it is through “our investments, our national resolve, and indeed by the grace of the all mighty, we will defeat the gangs and bring down murders”.