Crime costs Jamaica 6% of GDP economists love to charge. Fine, but they do not like to make the real connection between the lifestyles of islanders, their morality, and current woeful levels of the nation's financial ratios.
 
In spite of the vast numbers of churches in Jamaica, islanders have one of the lowest levels of sexual morality in the world.   85 per cent of babies are born out of wedlock meaning that fornication, adultery  and consequently dysfunctional family structures are stratospherically high.  For a nation that claims it believes in God and the Bible, it is really strange that it and even many Pastors who have been preaching for 40 and fifty years, seem perplexed as to why economic prosperity continues to desert us in spite of our many world beating products and assets!  Yet what does the Bible say about poverty and fornication and adultery?  
 
SEXUAL IMMORALITY LEADS TO FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
Proverbs 6: 26  For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought down to a piece of bread, and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.
 27 Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?
 28 Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?
 29 So he that goeth in to his neighbor's wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent.
 32 But whoso committeth adultery with a woman..destroyeth his own soul.
 33 A wound and dishonor shall he get, and his reproach shall not be wiped away.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Can it be made any plainer?  Economists who claim belief in the Bible and try to lay the blame for Jamaica's financial problems at the feet of government, are way off base. The connection between economic standing and morality is clear; very clear and financial shows do the nation injustice by not raising this issue.
 
"In his book Life Without Father, David Popenoe found the relationship between family structure and crime to be so strong that it erases the relationship between race, low income and crime. White, black, rich and poor two-parent offspring all have far lower incarceration rates than their single parent fatherless peers." Chang, K. Jamaica Gleaner
 
 The church has made many mistakes and one of them was and is not to show the clear link between morality and prosperity.  Politicians cannot make this argument.  God knew that adultery and fornication leads to poverty and since poverty is anti-God, he could not condone them.  We cannot have prosperity and reduced crime without increasing morals. We can argue about that for months, but it is common sense for children to belong in families. You can check history and look for examples worldwide- any nation with a stable family environment has never had a sustainable crime rate as ours and never will, because few are willing to admit it, and research exists in abundance to back this up, poor family structure is the root of crime, decadence, poverty and numerous associated evils.

FOREIGN INVESTORS ARE SCARED OF COUNTRIES WITH
WIDESPREAD DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES

Foreign investors will never invest in Jamaica the way they have invested in Costa Rica or Ireland because they have persons advising them and these advisors know that the quality of a country's work force is directly related to the quality of the country's family life. So we are trying to put paste on a festering wound and wondering why it will not heal. We will never have lasting prosperity as long as we have widespread dysfunctional families but no one on the island is bold enough to say so, instead they like to tickle the ears of the masses with "moah man haf gal dan evah befoah" P. Patterson, and "bwoy mus chek gal an gal mus chek bwoy" Minister Davis.

Our low productivity too is directly related to our dysfunctional families which spawns poor workers and we need an economic productivity formula to show this clearly.

p = k(1/x)
p = output of physical efforts
k = constant (family of normal size four)
x = family of abnormal size (five and greater)

As far as I know this has not been developed in the field of economics- anyone want to go for the Nobel Prize in Economics?

BUILDING A NATION IS THE SAME AS BUILDING A FAMILY

NO one has ever taught the Jamaican people what it really means to build a nation and an economy. From the moment we were liberated, emancipated and became independent, the nation should have been taught what steps were necessary for us to advance nationally and to increase our standard of living. This, as far as I know was never done. No Prime Minister or Minister of religion or Govenor General has ever instigated a program to teach the nation what are the implications we face and would face with the advent of independence. We embarked on nation building without a master plan. Who would ever think about building a highway or constructing a sky scraper without a master plan or design. Then how come we say we are building a nation and no one has ever seen or designed some sort of master plan? The results of building without guidelines have been disastrous.

WHEN A NATION'S FAMILY UNIT IS IN SHAMBLES THE NATION ITSELF WILL BE IN SHAMBLES.

When a nation's family structure is in shambles and disorganization, the nation itself must be likewise. And for decades government after government have tried to build a nation without a plan to build the families of the nation. Let me burst the bubbles of all politicians current and future. We will never have lasting prosperity as a nation as long as we have widespread dysfunctional family structures. We have never realized the importance of strong families and have no respect as a nation for such. If we did we would have  chased Prime Minsiter Patterson out of office for that remark that further destroyed whatever respect there was for the family unit; "moah man haf gal dan evah befoah." Proof that even the former Prime Minister himself had no clue to the importance of the family unit to nation building or if he did the proof that his partisans were more important than his "countrisans" is now evident.