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header1Overview

Jamaica’s political system is democratic and features competitive elections and orderly rotations of power. However, corruption remains a serious problem, and long-standing relationships between officials and organized crime figures are thought to persist. Violent crime is an ongoing concern, as are harassment and violence against LGBT+ people.

header2Key Developments in 2024

• Municipal elections that had originally been due in 2020 were finally held in February after a series of postponements. The opposition People’s National Party (PNP) won the most votes and seats overall, but the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) retained control over seven of the 13 municipal councils.
• Separately in February, Parliament adopted legislation that called for the Election Commission of Jamaica to assume the functions of the political ombudsman, an office that had been eliminated in 2022 and was responsible for investigating reports of misconduct among political parties. Critics of the new law warned that the credibility of both entities could be undermined as a result of the merger.
• In September, the country’s Integrity Commission reported discrepancies in the personal financial declarations of Prime Minister Andrew Holness and refused to certify them, drawing sharp criticism from Holness and the JLP. Holness challenged the commission’s reports in court, and a judicial review was granted in December; the results were pending at year’s end.
• Also in September, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights expressed concern about the Jamaican government’s frequent imposition of localized states of emergency—which provide expanded authority to security forces, including the power to search, arrest, and detain suspects without warrants—in response to violent crime. The most recent state of emergency had been declared in August in the parish of Clarendon, after eight people were killed and nine others were injured in a shooting incident. Crime rates overall remained high but were in decline; the number of homicides fell by 19 percent to 1,141 in 2024 compared with the previous year.
• The Domestic Violence (Amendment) Act took effect in January. It expanded eligibility for orders of protection to new categories of applicants and increased penalties for violations of such orders.

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For additional background information, see last year’sfull report.

PRPolitical Rights

CLCivil Liberties