To be blunt my view is that it beholds us [Africans] to critque and properly examine so called facts, their source and their methodolgy.. what disappointed me is not only as someone who considers himself an African, but is also proud of his Jamaica pathway to that Africaness... Is that some people instead of exploring with an AFRICAN eye the subtext to these figures choose instead to repeat and reaffirm some of the negativity that is associated to certain countries without thought...

If people looked Objectively at ALL the countries listed in the original top 10 list of high homicide rate..the common denominator that has seriously been missed is that all these copuntrie has polar extremes in Wealth and poverty...and i suggest that if you compared them to countries on a like for like basis without these extremes it might just go some way to explaining WHY some countries have a high homicide rate and other virtually next door do not...

For example I visited T&T this year Trinidad has a homicide rate equal to JA...yet its twin island Tobago barely few miles of the coast of Trindad has a fraction.. [eg when i was there in Feb 08 the murder rate had passed 60 for the year... in comparison to Tobago which had 3 for the whole of 07] My question is why the difference in a country with the SAME government and economics? again T& T is less than 1 hours flight time from Barbados where i also visited and those two islands are like chalk and cheese..again you don't get the high levels of criminality in Barbados that you do in T&T why?

I can say that i honestly feel safer in JA & T&T than i do in London.... So when we talk about mentality lets get it into context..... as much as i acknowledge JA high murder rate at least it can be understood in the context of its socio economics and demographics....how do we explain the high youth crime in the UK, a country with a WELFARE benefits system, free education and no evidence of Absolute poverty of the type found in the countries in that top ten list.?

Some times people really ought to STOP questioning countries like JA from a western standpoint because it does NOT give one an accurate perspective on the issues?