By Jolly Green

1st Place Award goes to the US Virgin Islands
[top award of the Caribbean, Only El Salvador, Honduras and Venezuela have more murders per capita than the U.S. Virgin Islands (world murder ranking #4)]

2nd Place Award goes to Jamaica [a close run second place (world murder ranking #6]

3rd Place Award goes to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines [we know you can do better (world murder ranking #13]
List of Caribbean Countries Intentional Homicide Rate

Virgin Islands [USA]: 49.26 murders per 100,000 Year: 2012 Ref: MD
[2017 60] (world murder ranking #4)]

Jamaica: 47.01 murders per 100,000 Year: 2016 Ref: OAS/CTS
[2017 50] (world murder ranking #6)

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: 36.46 murders per 100,000 Year: 2016 Ref: OAS/CTS
[2017 39] (world murder ranking #13)

Saint Kitts and Nevis: 34.23 murders per 100,000 Year: 2012 Ref: OAS/CTS

Trinidad and Tobago: 30.88 murders per 100,000 Year: 2015 Ref: OAS/CTS

Bahamas: 28.40 murders per 100,000 Year: 2016 Ref: OAS/CTS/NP

Anguilla: 27.66 murders per 100,000 Year: 2014 Ref: NSO/SDG/PAHO

Montserrat: 19.88 murders per 100,000 Year: 2012 Ref: PAHO/WHO/MD

Saint Lucia: 19.27 murders per 100,000 Year: 2014 Ref: OAS/MD

Curaçao: 19.19 murders per 100,000. Year: 2007 Ref: PAHO

Puerto Rico: 18.51 murders per 100,000. Year: 2016 Ref: NP/NSO

Dominican Republic: 15.18 murders per 100,000. Year: 2016 Ref: NGO/SES/CTS/RIC

Barbados: 10.91 murders per 100,000 Year: 2015 Ref: OAS/CTS

Antigua and Barbuda: 10.33 murders per 100,000 Year: 2012 Ref: OAS

Grenada : 10.25 murders per 100,000. Year: 2016 Ref: OAS/CTS

Haiti: 10.04 murders per 100,000. Year: 2012 Ref: OAS

Cayman Islands: 8.45 murders per 100,000 Year: 2014 Ref: MD/WHO/NSO

British Virgin Islands: 8.37 murders per 100,000 Year: 2006 Ref: MD

Dominica: 8.37 murders per 100,000. Year: 2011 Ref: UNSDC/OAS

Guadeloupe: 8.01 murders per 100,000. Year: 2009 Ref: NP

Turks and Caicos Islands: 5.93 murders per 100,000. Year: 2014 Ref: PAHO/MD

Cuba: 4.99 murders per 100,000 Year: 2016 Ref: MD/MOH

Martinique: 2.78 murders per 100,000. Year: 2009 Ref: NP

Aruba: 1.93 murders per 100,000 Year: 2014 Ref: MD

US Government: Comments on US Virgin Islands murder rate, According to the USA the US Virgin Islands have a higher murder rate than the US mainland. That has been confirmed by the FBI but as yet no statement of what they are doing about it. [Do not confuse the US Virgin Islands with the British Virgin Islands who are among the World’s lowest crime rate countries]

Jamaican Government: Comments on Jamaican murder rate “Spiraling murder rate must be number one priority in 2018”. [No BS in that statement and no giving away the plan]

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: Comments by Dr. Ralph Everard Gonsalves the Prime Minister who is also Minister of National Security The prime minister said it continues to be the policy of his Unity Labour Party administration “to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.” He also said his party already created ‘Pan Against Crime’ ten years ago to control crime [he actually thinks that has worked rather well]; now he has announced a new initiative called ‘Sports Against Crime’ which he firmly believes will bring crime under control when finally introduced in 2018.

However, that just was not good enough for the NDP opposition party who said “Stop whining, do something about crime”, That was the view expressed by opposition Leader Godwin Friday on Boom FM when asked to comment about Gonsalves being dismissive of the [NDP arranged] walks against high crime and joblessness that Mr. Friday led for the last two Saturdays. [In fact, Gonsalves objected to the NDP walk against crime and unemployment]

“Instead of whining about it, he should try to do something about it,” Friday said, one day after the prime minister spoke on the same radio programme.
The opposition leader said that Gonsalves, who is also Minister of National Security, has not even acknowledged a crime problem in SVG.

UNITED NATIONS REPORT: U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS IS THE NEW MURDER CAPITAL OF THE CARIBBEAN … AND FOURTH OVERALL IN THE WORLD
FOLLOWED BY JAMAICA. [We all now know that Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is 13th overall in the World for murders and number 3 in the Caribbean]

What does a high murder rate tell us about the country? The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC] boldly state the cyclic relationship between crime and economic conditions: there is a clear link between violent crime and development: crime hampers poor human and economic development; this, in turn, fosters crime. Improvements to social and economic conditions go hand in hand with the reduction of violent crime.

If we take some economic measures such as GDP per capita from the CIA FactBook we can see a general trend that those lower in the ranking are those with higher murder rates.

Section 2 of the UNODC report looks in more detail at these trends, relating murder rates to inequality in society and other economic indicators.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/oct/10/world-murder-rate-unodc

ALL IMAGES Supplied by Author

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