CRIME AND joblessness are the most pressing problems facing the country at the national and community levels, according to the latest polls commissioned by The Gleaner.
Conducted by pollster Don Anderson and his team of researchers from Market Re-search Services Ltd., between September 15 and 24, the polls indicate that unemployment is seen as the most pressing problem at the community level while crime is the most daunting at the national level.
The polls involved a representative sample of 1,000 persons from across the island, 18 years and over and has a 3.2 per cent margin of error.
In the community poll, 34.3 per cent of respondents identified unemployment as the biggest problem facing communities at present. The crime factor followed in second place with 19.9 per cent of respondents citing it as the monster problem in their communities. Bad roads followed in third position at 18.1 per cent.
Other problems cited at the community level included lack of proper infrastructure, garbage collection, sewage and drainage, petty thieves, health hazards, teen pregnancy and education.
On the national level, unemployment was bumped from the top of the list by crime. Almost 54 per cent of respondents felt that crime/violence was the island's biggest demon. Unemployment was relegated to second position on the national scale with more than 31 per cent of Jamaicans seeing it as the island's most pressing problem. Other problems cited at the national level included a bad economy, education, mismanagement and bad roads.
According to the Planning Institute of Jamaica's (PIOJ) 2002 Economic and Social Survey, 170,100 persons are unemployed, or 15.10 per cent of the labour force. The female unemployment rate is 20.7 per cent, nearly twice as much as the male unemployment rate, which is at 10.6 per cent.
Since the start of the year more than 700 persons have been murdered.
