Crime
The majority of violence in Belize stems from gang violence, which includes trafficking of drugs and persons, drug smuggling routes, and sales rights. Even so, violence in Belize is relatively less significant compared to some of the other Latin American countries (Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala).
From 2006 to 2007, the serious crime reports (defined as murder, rape, theft, burglary, etc.) decreased from 3,853 to 3,172, a decrease of 681 reports. But still, in 2007, 97 murders were reported while in 2006, 92 murders were reported. Belize City is responsible for housing a large percentage of the murders: 39 murders in 2007 and 35 in 2006. In 2011, 125 murders were recorded in Belize, giving the country a capital homicide rate of 39 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, the sixth highest in the world. Compared to the other districts in Belize, the Belize District (containing Belize City, specifically the southern area of Belize City) had the most murders by far compared to all the other districts. In 2007, 54% of the murders occurred in the Belize District. This increase in violence in the south of Belize City is largely due to gang warfare.
The detection rate of these murders decreased from 2006 to 2007, with a 64% detection rate in 2006 and a 63% detection rate in 2007. Seventy-six people were arrested and charged with murder in 2006, and 82 people were arrested and charged in 2007. Aside from the high number of murders, there are also rape cases (38 reported in 2007), robberies (507 reported in 2007), and burglaries (1244 cases in 2007). In 2007, the Belize police seized 130 firearms, 507 kilos of cannabis and 32 kilos of cocaine, and disposed of over twenty-three thousand mature marijuana plants. There are many possible explanations for the multitude of murders, including robberies, disputes (drug related and domestic), misunderstandings, and the leading cause: altercations.
The Belize Police Department has implemented many protective measures in hopes of decreasing the high number of crimes. These methods include adding more patrols to “hot spots” in the city, obtaining more resources to deal with the predicament, creating the Do the Right Thing for Youths at Risk program, creating the Crime Information Hot line, creating the Yabra Citizen Development Committee, an organization that helps the youth, and many other initiatives. The Belize Police Department began an Anti-Crime Christmas campaign targeting criminals; as a result, the crime rates dropped in that month. In 2011, the government established a truce between many major gangs, lowering the murder rate.
Read more about this topic: Subdivisions Of Belize
Famous quotes containing the word crime:
“There is no society known where a more or less developed criminality is not found under different forms. No people exists whose morality is not daily infringed upon. We must therefore call crime necessary and declare that it cannot be non-existent, that the fundamental conditions of social organization, as they are understood, logically imply it.”
—Emile Durkheim (1858–1917)
“His [O.J. Simpson’s] supporters lined the freeway to cheer him on Friday and commentators talked about his tragedy. Did those people see the photographs of the crime scene and the great blackening pools of blood seeping into the sidewalk? Did battered women watch all this on television and realize more vividly than ever before that their lives were cheap and their pain inconsequential?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in chains, it is an enormity to flog one, sheer murder to slay one: what, then, shall I say of crucifixion? It is impossible to find the word for such an abomination.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)