Part 2

• Cont'd from yes­ter­day

Year by year to­tal in­crease

The two largest an­nu­al in­creas­es in a sin­gle year was Ja­maica, with 1,471 (2004), up from 975 (2003) or an in­crease of 496; and 1,139 (2001), up from 887 (2000) or an in­crease of 252 mur­ders. T&T's largest in­crease in mur­ders was 156 fol­low­ing its jump from 391 (2007) to 547 (2008).

Largest year­ly per­cent­age in­crease

The largest year-on-year per­cent­age in­crease was Do­mini­ca (2002), up from one (2001). This was fol­lowed by St Vin­cent and the Grenadines with 36 (2007), up from 13 (2006) or 177 per cent, Grena­da with 14 (2003), up from six (2002) or 133 per cent, St Kitts-Nevis's in­crease of 17 (2006), up from eight (2005) or 112 per cent, and ten (2003), up from five (2002) or 100 per cent, and Guyana's jump to 142 (2002), up from 79 (2001) or 80 per cent. St Kitts and Nevis al­so had an­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant in­crease of 23 (2008), up from 16 (2007) or 44 per cent. T&T's largest year-on-year per­cent­age in­crease was 547 (2008), up 391 (2007) or 40 per cent.

Largest in­crease

over the decade

The largest in­crease in to­tal num­bers over the decade (795) was Ja­maica with 1,682 (2009), from 887 (2000). T&T's in­creas­es from 120 (2000) to 547 (2008) or 427 and 506 (2009) or 386 are much low­er than Ja­maica's. The largest to­tal per­cent­age in­crease over the decade was Do­mini­ca with an in­crease from two (2000) to 13 (2009) or 550 per cent, fol­lowed by T&T with an in­crease from 120 (2000) to 547 (2009) or 355 per cent.

Chang­ing land­scape

It is vir­tu­al­ly cer­tain that T&T's mur­der rate will be low­er in 2011 than 2010, be­cause of the down­ward trend be­tween 472 (2010) and the cur­rent num­bers. Con­sid­er­ing that St Kitts-Nevis and the Ba­hamas record­ed 32 and 122 mur­ders re­spec­tive­ly by No­vem­ber 30 (both na­tion­al records), and Ja­maica's huge re­duc­tions, giv­en T&T's cur­rent mur­der sta­tis­tics, it will like­ly re­main at its fourth po­si­tion in the Caribbean at the end of 2011. So come De­cem­ber 31, we will see a shift in the bal­ance of pow­er in the re­gion, with St Kitts-Nevis and the Ba­hamas break­ing new ground along with in­ter­est­ing de­vel­op­ments on the crime scene in Be­lize and St Lu­cia, cou­pled with mas­sive re­duc­tions in Ja­maica and a con­tin­u­ing down­ward trend in T&T which pre­ced­ed the SoE and cur­few.

As we put the myth of T&T be­ing the mur­der cap­i­tal of the Caribbean to rest, my ad­vice to the me­dia is: in your haste to write ar­ti­cles that have neg­a­tive im­pli­ca­tions on the im­age of coun­tries in the re­gion, en­sure that your in­for­ma­tion is re­li­ably sourced and ac­cu­rate, your analy­sis is sound, and your rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the facts is fair and bal­anced.