Everybody that has contributed to this thread each has solved a part of a very complex puzzle. The Lotto scam?? Who would have thought that anybody would fall for that?? Yet I had a 95 year old neighbor who passed recently that if she had been contacted could very well have "fallen" for the scam.

jon c. the decades of JA having a reputation for crime being out of control often times were contained in the cities (Kingston, MoBay, etc..) and were political in nature rearing its ugly head during election time and had a lot to do with intimidating the voters with fear, especially the 1980 election. Yes it was bad for JA tourism at the time.

But now I read about 2 or 3 people at a time, entire families, young children, the elderly and tourists being murdered for, in many cases, no logical motive for the act. Yes that has existed worldwide since the beginning of mankind but somehow I remember a special charm that I felt while in Jamaica. Perhaps a wallet or camera were taken from time to time. Maybe an attack or even a rape but that was such a rarity that most didn't even hear about it.

Maybe I'm being too nostalgic here and not realistic in my comments but to see the meltdown of a culture, community and country fall prey to the evil and negative is difficult for me to accept and yes Rob it is up to all of us who care to do whatever we can big or small to try and help our Jamaican brethren.

As for me the more I think about the breakdown in Jamaica society the more credence I give to the simple. Greed, fueled by foreign intervention, political manipulation leading to the importation of thousands of guns and violence and the evolution of the ganja trade into cocaine, especially crack and also heroin and other addictive and violence provoking drugs. The recipes for disaster!!