Urban Poverty and Violence in Jamaica (World Bank Latin American and Caribbean Studies)

This report, based primarily on a 1995 University of the West Indies participatory study, focuses on the complex relationship between violence and urban poverty in Jamaica. The government established the Jamaican Social Investment Fund (JSIF) in 1996, with the primary goal of reducing poverty and helping to create an environment for sustainable national development. To incorporate the voices of the urban poor in the JSIF project design, the study used a Participatory Urban Appraisal (PUA) methodology with fieldwork in five communities broadly representing Jamaica ' s poor areas. The study ' s specific objective was to elicit and identify perceptions of four different aspects of violence on employment, the economic and social infrastructure, and local social institutions, and the perceived means by which government, communities, households, and individuals could work to reduce violence. The PUA demonstrates that poor Jamaicans perceive the two assets -labor and social capital- as integrally linked in self-perpetuating cycles. As long as violence results in area stigma and as long as it keeps people locked in their communities, afraid to venture far from home, residents of these poor areas cannot access existing jobs, businesses are reluctant to invest in their communities, children have trouble getting to school, and the communities themselves are unlikely to improve their neighborhoods by investing in housing and other local infrastructure. Annotation The importance of violence as a contributory factor to urban poverty in Jamaica has gone largely unresearched. This paper outlines the results of a study undertaken by the World Bank and the government of Jamaica to focus on the issue. The study uses a participatory urban appraisal methodology in five poor urban areas, mainly in Kingston, to identify and understand local community perceptions of four different aspects of violence: its causes; its interrelationship with poverty; its impact on employment, economic and social infrastructure, and local social institutions; and ways in which government, communities, households, and individuals can work to reduce it