This is one of the sore points for the group in its annual report on Jamaica, released yesterday.

"There were high rates of murder and police killings in socially excluded inner-city com-munities,"Amnesty said in its report.

"The rate of police killings fell (in 2008) but remained high, with 222 people allegedly killed by police. Many occurred in circumstances suggesting that they were unlawful, despite frequent police claims that they were a result of shoot-outs with criminal gangs," the group added.

Public security crisis

According to Amnesty, Jamaica is facing a public security crisis, which has not been helped by the six anti-crime bills now before Parliament.

"Although training in crime-scene investigation and new forensic equipment for the Jamaica Constabulary Force were introduced, failure to protect crime scenes and poor quality of forensic investigations continued to severely hamper effective police work," Amnesty claimed.

The group also repeated its concerns about discrimination and violence against women and people in same-sex relationships.

"The true extent of attacks on gay men was unknown as the subject is taboo and people do not report attacks for fear of exposure," Amnesty claimed.

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