Belize homicide rate still well behind Jamaica

And while three homicides are still three too many, that rate is still well off last year’s record pace which, according to official figures, saw a total of ninety-seven people killed. Belize, however, was not the only Caribbean country that had a bad 2007. Jamaica, a nation with roughly ten times our population, recorded over fifteen times as many murders: one thousand, five hundred and seventy-four in the twelve month period. This was a seventeen percent increase from 2006. Among that number were nineteen police officers, one hundred forty-six women and an alarming sixty-five children. November was Jamaica’s bloodiest month with one hundred sixty-six victims of homicide.