Crime Stats Indicate that Murders Are Up in 2015

On May thirteenth Minister of National Security John Saldivar criticized the media for sensationalizing murders in the country. He seemed to feel that instead we should be heaping praises on his Ministry, since under his watch, major crimes have gone down thirty percent. It’s an almost unbelievable statistic, since murders, that most major of crimes, are at a record-setting level at mid-May. Here are the words of Minister Saldivar for context.

FILE – May 13, 2015

John Saldivar, Minister of National Security

John Saldivar

“We are working hard at the Ministry of National Security and at the Police Department to combat the rise in crime. I can tell you that even though on the news we sensationalize all the murders that have been taking place, I can tell you that since 2012 when I took over as the Minister of National Security, we have seen a thirty percent decrease in major crimes in this country, but that goes unnoticed because the media prefers to cover the murders and not the other crime statistics which show that we are making great progress. We continue to make great strides.”

Here’s the thing. The Ministry of National Security today released the statistics on major crimes for 2012 to 2015. Major crimes are broken down into six categories – murder, rape, robbery, burglary, theft and carnal knowledge. Robberies, burglaries and thefts have gone down. Murders, rapes and carnal knowledge have ALL gone up as compared to 2014. The decreases in robberies, thefts and burglaries account for that much trumpeted thirty percent increase. And we note also that there was another murder today to add to those statistics.