Police quarterly report claims serious crime is down

Police have published statistics for the first quarter of the year and, if the figures are to be believed, serious crimes have decreased drastically over the last year. In a press release issued today the Police Department reports that for the first three months of the year, with the exception of murder, there were seven hundred thirty-eight major crimes reported in Belize, compared to nine hundred and nine during the same period in 2007, a drop of eighteen point eight percent. Those crimes include robberies, burglaries, thefts, rapes and carnal knowledge. Even in the homicide category there was only a small increase year to year: twenty-eight murders in the first three months of 2008 against twenty-six during the same period of 2007. It is worth noting that according to the most recent full year statistics reported in January, the drop in crime was already well underway as serious crimes in 2007 dropped almost seventeen percent from 2006. While we take issue with the report’s assertion that regionally “Belize’s murder rate can be described as low”, the regular publishing of crime statistics is a welcomed practice which we hope will continue, regardless of which way the numbers trend. As for regional comparisons, Belize’s murder rate is among the highest in the Caribbean, second only to Jamaica and roughly similar to St. Vincent and St. Kitts.