Well, Jenny and I went there a few years back. We stayed at a hotel near Doctors Cove beach in Montego Bay. MoBay (as its called) is a lot safer and more tourist oriented than Kingston -- where most of the murders probably occur (and they're likely all Jamaican on Jamaican...tourists are not being killed regularly there, or we'd have all kinds of stories on the news).
The only thing with Jamaica is its very hard to do the independent, backpacker type travel there. There isn't a whole lot of infrastructure for it. Most tourists hire a driver and car for the day when they want to get out and see the island. Heck, most tourist probably rarely leave their resort! Jenny and I got out quite a bit, but still I felt a tad frustrated that I couldn't just hop on a public bus and head to some other part of the island to check it out. I imagine they do have them, but the specter of crime keeps it from being a well traveled trail...
Good luck. And if you need a contact, our tour guide that we hired to see the Cockpit country still keeps in contact with me. I designed his website for him after I got back, he's a nice guy. Check it out at:
http://www.kensjamaica.com
-- edited because previous link apparently wasn't working...
You can even see a pic of Jenny in the custom built tours page...
worldwidemike