Murders down 30 percent

The latest police statistics show a near 30 percent decrease in murders compared to 2019, Minister of National Security Marvin Dames said yesterday. 

“Armed robberies are down in double digits,” he told reporters outside Cabinet.

“Murders are down close to 30 percent with three months remaining in this year, so some good things are happening.”

Dames added, “So, a lot of our serious crimes continue to trend downward. Every year when we report we reflect that, and so that speaks to the fact that some significant progress is being made. We’re not there yet. We have a tremendous amount of work to do.”

Dames said police are doing their jobs, but the fight against crime comes down to individuals in their communities.

“The problems that we see are not problems that would have occurred overnight,” he said.

“And they are not the police problems. When we continue to say, ‘What is the police doing?’, I believe that is the wrong question.

“What are we doing, each and every one of us? And the problems that we see are a manifestation over the years of our application of responsibility on behalf of many of us as parents.

“So, the police are generally called in when they have to enforce…when you reach that point, what you’re saying essentially is that everything else would have failed.”

Dames’ comments came a day after a mother and her eight-year-old daughter were murdered in their beds in the Nassau Village area. He said the matter appears to be domestic and said it speaks to the societal issues in The Bahamas.

Dames said that Bahamians who are calling for the use of capital punishment should recognize that the country is “at a crossroads”. He called for better and more involved parenting to help the crime problem

“People recognize that we are at a crossroads and we have tremendous work to do,” he said.

“We have to work with our kids. These are our children, nobody else’s. We brought them into the world.

“And as said before, until each and every one of us comes to recognize that it is our responsibility to participate in this process, we will continue to go down this path. 

“It’s going to take every individual that lives in a community in this country to stand up and say, ‘I’ve got some work to do.’

“We can’t abdicate our responsibility as we have been doing as parents for many years and turning it over to the police, because it’s not the police’s job.

“The police have their role and they continue to play it. They continue to do a tremendous job. The numbers continue to reflect that year after year, since we’ve been in government, the numbers continue to decline. And that is a positive sign. Is that means for celebration? No, it isn’t. I’ll be the first to say that. We’re always looking at ways that we can improve.

“But if you can say, come September, that your homicide figures are close to 30 percent on the decline, your armed robbery figures continue to go down every year, your housebreaking figures continue to go down every year, that’s a credit to the police and it’s a credit to the building of relationships through programs like the NNWC (National Neighborhood Watch Council) with the police.”

According to police statistics, there were 95 murders in 2019, compared to 91 in 2018 – an increase of four percent. There was also a 12 percent increase in armed robberies, with 531 incidents in 2019 compared to 474 in 2018.

It remains unclear how much the 2020 crime figures have been impacted by measures that were put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19, which, at some points included 24-hour curfews and weekend lockdowns. 

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