Bishop Notice warns Jamaica faces moral crisis as school violence and lewd culture spread

WESTERN BUREAU: Jamaica is widely seen as a society that has lost its grip on discipline, after years of slipping moral standards that church leaders say must be reversed if the country is to keep its identity as a God-fearing nation.

Speaking at the National Workers’ Week and Labour Day Thanksgiving Church Service at St John’s Methodist Church in Montego Bay, St James, on Sunday, Bishop Dr Roy Notice, who chairs the Jamaica Umbrella Group of Churches, pointed to recent accounts of campus brawls and hostile conduct among young people, as well as violence across communities, as signs that Jamaicans have grown accustomed to breaking rules without shame.

“Jamaica needs discipline, because we are battling deep indiscipline in this society. We see it in school fights, a kind of unfathomable aggression among not only children, but on the streets and in our relationships with each other. We see the disrespect shown to teachers, the reckless behaviour on the roads, impatience in traffic, refusal to wait, refusal to yield, refusal to obey laws, unless a man dressed in blue (police officer) is watching,” Notice said.

“Too much of our public space is filled and polluted by vulgarity, lewdness, meanness, selfishness, violence, and messages that pull our young people away from decency. Indiscipline is not just a school problem or a traffic problem; it is a soul problem, and one of the things that we lament is that, if we are not careful, the nation is becoming de-souled, where ‘we nuh feel no way’ about certain things as they unfold in the nation,” Notice added.

Campus safety has dominated headlines in recent months. Among the latest cases, several fights were reported on the grounds of St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) on May 6. In one encounter, a blade was allegedly used and officers were called in, leading administrators to cancel classes for the next day.

Four STETHS pupils, aged 13 to 15, have since been charged with assault occasioning bodily harm in connection with those clashes.

Earlier, on March 4, 16-year-old Devonie Shearer, a student at Ocho Rios High School, died after a metal chair struck his head during an argument with a 17-year-old schoolmate. The older teen has been charged with murder.

Notice also cited figures suggesting residents spent close to $500 million on subscriptions to the adult platform OnlyFans in 2025, treating that spending as proof that crude entertainment is now treated as ordinary rather than offensive to Jamaica’s Christian image.

“I was a little taken aback the other day, when in the public space it was reported that Jamaicans spent hundreds of millions of dollars on online adult content subscriptions. Further, there are street events where people come skimpily dressed, gyrating on each other, and they have become a part of the emerging, defining culture,” said Notice.

“It is cause for pause, and we must ask, are our appetites costing us morally, spiritually, and relationally? A nation under God cannot be governed by unholy appetites; we cannot complain in one breath about broken families, and then feed into the desires that we cannot discipline. The Word of the Lord calls us to holy restraint, not bodies ruled by impulse, but a people who use their gifts and their bodies to honour Almighty God,” Notice said.