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Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness. (Photo via CMC)
KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – Prime Minister Andrew Holness Tuesday urged Jamaican women to play a more meaningful role in raising their male counterparts warning that those involved in criminal activities will not “live to enjoy the fruits of crime”.
Speaking at a special post-Cabinet news conference relating to International Women’s Day which is marked on March 8, Holness said that Jamaica over the past few years has made significant strides in getting women to be an integral part of the socio-economic development of the country.
He said for example, his cabinet has five women, the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has 11 women in the Parliament with 38 per cent of the Senate being women legislators.
“All of them have done their jobs, not because they are women, they have done their jobs because they are smart, intelligent, courageous innovative. So it is not about gender it is about their capabilities”.
But Holness said he was urging the female members of society to play a stronger role in getting their male counterparts away from a life of crime, noting that “women have a particularly influential role on some of these men.
“Let me tell you something, if you go to the prisons today, and you ask any of the prisoners who do you love the most, who do you miss the most, who do you think you have disappointed the most, who do you think they are going to say?
“Their mother and when the police come for them, who do you think they are going to cry for? Women have a very influential role,” he said, adding that “too many of our mothers are crying because their sons have either been taken away by violence or they have become part of the problem”.
Holness said this situation must stop and that women have the power to help in this change.
“Mothers, who are your son’s first teachers, you shape their values, their attitudes and their understanding of right and wrong. I urge you talk to your sons, talk to them. Put away the belt for now and reason with them”.
Holness said that it would be “too late” when the sons are staring down the barrel of a gun for the mothers to do anything to help them.
“It’s too late when they are in the prisons, regretful of their past lives. Take the time now to talk to your sons and as you hear my voice today and if you know your son, your nephew, your boyfriend in a gang or criminality, just pick up the phone or when you see them in a moment, talk to them”.
Prime Minister Holness said it is important for the mothers to plant the seeds in the heads of their sons that crime does not pay, adding that his government has changed the risk-reward function of crime.
“For those criminals who believe that the reward for crime is still greater than the risk of crime, you are making a mistake,” he said, adding “if you believe you are going to live to enjoy the fruits of crime, you are mistaken”.
The prime minister said he was appealing to mothers, girlfriends, aunts and cousins to talk with their male counterparts.
“The message I have delivered here cannot be more serious and I believe we have given sufficient warning to the criminals. If we seem them being pulled into negative influences, I appeal to our women, reach out to them, save them, this is a different Jamaica.
“Let them know that there is an alternative, that there is a bright future,” Holness said, acknowledging that he is aware that there are some women “who justify the actions of their men.
“They say they have no other alternative and they are sometimes the first to run out in the streets to cry and stand between them and law enforcement to say they are innocent. Stop and think for a moment of the thousands of young men in Jamaica who choose not to be involved in crime. Why should we excuse those who are and not acknowledge and support the thousands who decide not to”.
Holness said the number of young men who are creating problems in society “is no more than five per cent of the total cohort of young men if that much.
“So with the help of the mothers, sisters, grandmothers, girlfriends and friends…if we can reach out to those problem five per cent, we can save their lives, we can out them on a pathway like thousands of others, who are struggling, facing the hardships the same way and have decided they are not going to engage in crime”.
Prime Minister Holness said there is need to change the value system to “reward those who choose Jamaica, who choose not to be involved in crime, who choose despite the hardship, stay on the path of righteousness.
“We must reward those people,” Holness added.
Jamaica has so far recorded 117 murders for the first tw months of this year as compared to 180 last year. The number of people murdered in Jamaica amounted to 1,141 in 2024, down from the 2023 figure of 1,393.
Grace-Anne Smith