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A murder every 17 hours
Darryl Heeralal dheeralal@trinidadexpress.com
Monday, July 21st 2008
THERE are only 64 countries in the world smaller than Trinidad and Tobago and, in terms of land mass, we rank 171 out of 235 nations.
As per population, Trinidad and Tobago is 153 on the list of 235, the United States Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook says.
Now compare our size and population to the number of murders being committed here daily.
In a comparative study of more than 75 countries, Trinidad and Tobago was ranked the ninth most homicidal in the world in 2007, based on the number of murders committed per 100,000 citizens.
The per capita murder rate for homicides for every 100,000 is the international yardstick used to measure murder rates and to compare levels of violence.
Per capita rates are used by most international agencies, including the United Nations.
The study was based on a 2003 survey and presented on nationmaster.com, which is dedicated to compiling crimes figures for countries around the world and a 2007 list complied by wikipedia.com, an independent website.
Figures for the 2007 list of countries compiled (see below) were independently sourced using statistics from various government and police records for each nation.
In Trinidad and Tobago, in the five years since 2003, the per capita murder rate almost doubled, increasing by over 70 per cent from 17.61 to 30.15, one of the largest jumps in the countries surveyed.
So far for 2008, we are ahead of last year's murder rate by more than 100 - an increase of 71 per cent. The per capita rate predicted by police for the end of this year is expected to be higher than the 2007 figure.
The ratio of murder victims to the population of this country is in fact so high we rank above places like Brazil, which recorded over 51,000 murders last year, Russia over 23,000 murders, the United States over 17,000 murders and Mexico over 14,000 murders.
For this year so far, the per capita rate is just above 20 and if murder trends continue with a killing taking place every 17 hours on average, homicide investigators say we can expect over 500 murders at the end of this year.
If Homicide Bureau projections - based on murders committed so far and compared with trends for previous years - are correct, then we would end up with a per capita rate of over 38, making Trinidad and Tobago as homicidal as Colombia and South Africa.
South Africa, Colombia and Russia, which had ranked in the top five homicidal countries five years ago, have all been able to get their murder rates down with Russia and Colombia making the biggest drops.
And while this country has dropped on the per capita list from 2003, our rate has gone up exponentially, increasing by over 70 per cent in five years.
In terms of per capita murders in the Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago is second only to Jamaica and ranked more violent than Haiti, which is 17 on the list with a per capita rate of 11.5.
In Trinidad and Tobago, since 2001, the murder rate has on average increased by 24 per cent every year with the biggest jump being in 2005 with a 48 per cent increase in homicides over 2004.
There was a 4.6 per cent drop in the rate in 2006 over 2005.
Comparatively, the per capita rate since 2001 has leaped by 159 per cent from 11.6 to 30.15 at the end of last year, Homicide Bureau figures show.
In the six years between 1996 and 2001 there was a total of 662 murders, while between the start of 2002 and the end of 2007, 1,809 murders were recorded.
For this year so far, more than 290 murders have been committed.
Homicides committed along the East/West Corridor have accounted for over 70 per cent of the country's total murders every year since 2002, police figures show.
When gang murders first started escalating in 2002, former police commissioner Hilton Guy said that, based on the police's information, corruption with State-funded projects, including the Unemployment Relief Programme and NHA refurbishing project, was fuelling the gang violence.
Several special units in the Police Service formed to deal with gang violence say, based on their intelligence, corruption within these programmes continues to fuel the murders and with gangsters using money from these projects as a financial base to buy guns and drugs.
The United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have all issued travel warnings about the increasing incidence of homicide and kidnapping for ransom in this country within the last few years, all of which are still current.
None of the travel warnings from these countries has been downgraded.
There have also been several international media reports in the last five years about the violence in the nation, including the LA Times, Miami Herald, the BBC and other British media.
Two weeks ago, the British government, concerned about drug mules from this country, said it would now require a visa for Trinidad and Tobago nationals entering the UK if the situation is not turned around in six months.
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