Police’s Crime Stats: Most Major Crimes Up, Murder Count Past 100 Again

The Belize Police Department’s quarterly crime statistics covering the six major crimes – murder, robbery, burglary, theft, rape and unlawful sexual intercourse or carnal knowledge – were publicly announced at this morning’s conference of senior officers of the Belize Police Department; we will have a report on that conference later on. As you might expect, the numbers are not good, but major crime does not appear to be up significantly through the first nine months of 2016 compared to 2015; in fact, it is slightly lower. The most important metric, murders, is up slightly from one hundred and two reported last year to one hundred and eight so far this year, with several not yet counted for October. Commissioner of Police Allen Whylie shares the details.

Allen Whylie

Allen Whylie, Commissioner of Police

“The statistics that we have shows that we are a little below in terms of major crimes of where we were last year. The statistics shows basically that we have one thousand; six hundred and fifty major crimes reported up to the end of September, compared to one thousand, six hundred and fifty-five for the same period in 2015. The area of concern remains the issue of murders. That area is up, where we have at the end of September we have a hundred and eight murders and…”

Reporter

“How much was it in 2015 September?”

Allen Whylie

“In 2015 we were at a hundred and two murders. And since September to present we have had some additional murders; and so I think our murder count is at a hundred and sixteen with the recent murder that had taken place on San Pedro.  In respect to cases of rape, we have had sixteen cases reported to date, in comparison with thirty-two in 2015; and in terms of robbery, we have had one hundred and sixty-six cases reported in comparison to one hundred and fifty-three, so again it shows that we are thirteen cases above where we were in relation to cases of robbery. In regards to [theft], we have had six hundred and seventy-nine cases reported compared to seven hundred and forty-eight cases, so it shows that the issues of [theft] are down…And in respect to cases of [burglary], we have had six hundred and eleven cases compared to five hundred and sixty-two.”