Guyana’s homicide, robbery and burglary rates significantly exceed global average

Guyana’s homicide, robbery and burglary rates significantly exceed global average – IDB finds

Dec 13, 2018 News

By Kiana Wilburg

The Guyana Police Force (GPF) has often reported that serious crime is on the decline. Annual statistics from the Force would even give the impression that perhaps, crime is not so pervasive after all, that to some extent, it can be controlled. But is this really the case?
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) attempted to answer this question in one of its studies by comparing domestic stats with global crime averages. In its study titled, “Understanding and Combating Crime in Guyana,” it was highlighted that homicide is the most reliably reported form of violent crime in Guyana. At 19.4 homicides per 100,000 people in 2015, the study notes that Guyana’s reported homicide rate is relatively high and above the global average which stands at 6.2 per 100,000.
Although comparable to the rest of the Caribbean, the IDB study notes that Guyana still has the fourth highest rate in South America, behind Venezuela, Brazil and Colombia.
It was further stated in the study by Violence Prevention Consultants, Heather Sutton and Sasha Baxter, that rates reported by the police in UN Crime Trends Surveys (UNODC) nearly doubled from 2000 to 2013 (from 9.9/100,000 to 19.5/100,000).
But according to recent police reports, Sutton and Baxter found that this number continued to climb in 2014 and 2015. Given data limitations and the lack of empirical studies, it is difficult to determine the underlying drivers of this increase.
Turning their attention to other forms of crime, the authors noted that the national reported robbery rate in Guyana being (191 robberies / for every100,000 persons) and burglary rate (278/100,000), significantly exceed global averages, and have continued to climb in recent years.
It was noted, however, that actual rates are likely far higher, because crime is generally underreported in areas where trust in the police is low. Further to this, the report noted that trust in the police in Guyana is the lowest anywhere in the Latin American and Caribbean Region (LAC) region.
Additionally, the IDB study highlighted that official crime statistics is also prone to errors in police recording processes and therefore do not permit valid comparisons of levels of crime over time and between countries.
The Citizen Security authors said, “The lack of reliable, comprehensive, and continuously collected data still severely hinders efforts to understand the dimensions of crime and violence in Guyana and design relevant policies…”
In addition to the aforementioned, Sutton and Baxter reminded that high crime rates are known to impede growth by deterring foreign investment, stem development by diverting scare resources towards security, and contribute to migration of the highest skilled professionals.
As such, they contended that if the change in homicide rates in Guyana had been the same as the global average, from 1995–2011 (years of most data), GDP growth could have been an estimated 0.4 percent higher per year. With lower crime and violence, the duo said that more of these resources could have been invested in much-needed development projects.

RELIABLE CRIME DATA
In the IDB study, Sutton and Baxter stressed that police records only show a partial picture of crime and violence. They said that alternative data collection methods have been developed, such as the Safe Neighbourhoods Survey (2006, 2011, and 2013). However, the Survey is still not conducted regularly or with consistent nationally representative samples.
They stressed, “Existing police crime data are not disaggregated by gender, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic stratum, neighbourhood, or other factors necessary for analyzing correlation and causation. Data from victimization surveys would help address underreporting in police records.”
Furthermore, the Citizen Security Consultants said that evidence suggests that data on domestic and sexual violence should be collected separately from victimization surveys.
It was noted, too, that through the Citizen Security Program, the IDB has supported the Guyana Crime Observatory; however, their data are not currently available publicly online or integrated with broader Ministry of Public Security data systems.
Additionally, no survey data are publicly available on household expenditure on security, or on the consequences of being a victim of violence (e.g., hospitalization, labour hours lost, etc.). The Violence Prevention Consultants said that this makes it difficult to understand the magnitude of the costs of crime borne by private citizens.
They said, “Such data can easily be collected by adding questions to regular household surveys (e.g., surveys of household expenditure, living conditions surveys, census, and labour force surveys).”
Moreover, Sutton and Baxter asserted that public safety and the pursuit of knowledge are best served by open and timely availability of datasets and data analyses from a variety of perspectives. They stressed that making crime and survey data available to researchers, nongovernmental organizations, and civil society is in the public interest.