Crime rates in Caribbean are quintupling by time

Crime rates in the member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are regularly paddling up beyond the capacity of the individual national police forces to cope with.

Caribbean region holds for drug trafficking, smuggling, murders, aggravated burglary, and kidnapping and human trafficking in some cases.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has explained intentional homicide as the unlawful killing of a person by another person whose intention is to kill or seriously injure the victim.

The worst murder rates have been found in Jamaica in the Caribbean region.

According to a report, with 46.5 homicide victims per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020. Jamaica’s homicide rates have quintuple as compared to the Dominican Republic, where nine people get killed per 100,000 population the same year. At the same time, while counting upon homicide cases, the number of murders in Jamaica represents just 1.4 times the Dominican Republic.

The present rate of the spike in crime is a result of downfall in the region’s economies, which is due to the loss of preferential markets in the European Union for their vital commodities, a continuous fall in tourism, an increase in unemployment, and a drop in the actual value of earnings.

CARICOM region is threatened to be overrun by crime rates and regular criminal activities ahead unless the problem is managed and addressed comprehensively.

The international community-specifically the nations whose demand for illegal drugs, has played a vital role in the growth of the Caribbean as a transhipment centre-has failed to help the region implement policies to curb and prevent crime. Indeed, there are many proofs that they are withdrawing their support from the area.

One of the alternatives is the constant erosion of the region’s economic, social and political stability and an escalation of transnational crime with all the dire results this may hold for the security of the broader global community.