Murder and extreme violence are at crisis levels in Montego
Bay. Montego Bay is also the birthplace and centre of the lottery
scamming industry and its offshoots, an industry that generates
millions of US dollars a year, and is thought to be connected
to the high murder and shooting rates in St. James. This study
considered the purported nexus between lottery scamming,
gangs, and the high murder rate in St. James by situating St.
James’ violence problem in its socio-economic context, and
reviewed the measures that have been taken over the past decade
to tackle both problems.
The birth and growth of scamming are a result of a confluence
of factors: enabling technology, extant criminal entrepreneurial
systems, foundations laid by decades of political violence,
high societal tolerance for criminality and violence, and an
environment of material scarcity. It has flourished because of
the poor social conditions, the inefficacy of law enforcement
and the justice system, the lack of legal income-earning
opportunities, and the large amounts of money that can be easily
“earned.” The scamming enterprise itself may be incidental to
the embeddedness of the corruption, criminality, and violence
that characterize St. James and its environs; another criminal
enterprise could supplant scamming, with similar effects, just as scamming supplanted the illegal drug trade.