Barbados may be going through its worst economic crisis in decades, but it remains one of the safest places in the Americas in which to live.
For at a time when its neighbours are reeling from high murder rates when analysed according to the small sizes of their respective populations, Barbados’ rate of 7.4 deaths per 100 000 people in 2012, the latest year for which there were statistics, gives it a spot on the lowest rungs of the homicide ladder in the Caribbean and Central and South America.
That’s according to a new report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The report, The Global Study On Homicides, ranked three English-speaking Caribbean nations – Belize, Jamaica and St Kitts-Nevis – on the world’s Top 10 murder capitals, but it showed that Barbados’ rate had declined from 11 per 100 000 in 2010 to 9.6 in 2011, only to fall to 7.4 two years ago.
In the 2010-2012 period, Barbados, whose population was calculated at less than 280 000, recorded 79 murders compared with Jamaica’s 3 662; Trinidad and Tobago 1 200-plus and The Bahamas’ 238 in 2011-2012.
The new report stated that the Americas had overtaken Africa as the place on earth with the most peacetime murders. The global list was headed by Honduras, which in 2012 had a homicide rate of 90.4 per 100 000, which more than doubled that of Jamaica with 39.3.
What the figures show is that within the Caribbean, as indeed in all regions of the world, murder rates vary from country to country.
Here is the Caribbean’s picture: Belize, the lone English-speaking Caricom state in Central America, had a murder rate of 44.7 deaths per 100 000 two years ago, the third highest in the world, after Honduras and Venezuela. Gang violence is a hard fact of life in Belize City, the country’s most populous centre.
 Jamaica, with 2.7 million people in 2012, recorded a rate of 39.3.
“Jamaica’s fight against drugs and organised crime has reduced the country’s homicide rate since 2009, but it remains one of the most dangerous countries,” stated an international news agency. In 2012, 1 033 people were murdered there, down from 1 442 in 2010 and 1 133 the next year.
 St Kitts-Nevis, the smallest Eastern Caribbean sovereign state at the United Nations, had a population of less than 60 000 but a homicide rate of 33.6. The actual number of homicides recorded in 2012 was 18.
 Killings in The Bahamas fell to 111 in 2012, down from 127 the year before. The latest rate was 29.8 murders, a drop from 34.7 in 2011.
 Trinidad and Tobago, the twin-island republic with the best performing economy in the region, ended 2012 with a murder rate of 28.3, up from 26.4 in 2011 and 25.6 in 2010. Between 2010 and 2012, more than 1 200 people were murdered in Trinidad and Tobago which has a population of 1.2 million.
 Guyana’s rate of 17 per 100 000 in 2012 was up slightly over that of the year before when it was 16.4. More than 400 people were intentionally killed in the 2010-2012 period.
 Haiti, with ten million people, recorded 1 033 murders and a rate of 10.2, an increase from 9.1 in 2011, the year when 914 killings were officially added to rolls.
 Grenada’s homicide rate in 2012 was 13.3 and it was based on 14 murders in a population of 101 000.
 Antigua’s homicide rate of 2012 was 11.2.
 St Vincent and the Grenadines, 25.6 murders per 100 000 people.
The UN agency defines homicide as “an unlawful death purposefully inflicted on a person by another person”.
Among the study’s other findings: In the Western Hemisphere, more people get away with murder than in Europe. The conviction rate in the Americas was 24 per cent, compared with 81 per cent in Europe and 48 per cent in Asia.
 Almost half of the 437 000 murders worldwide took place in countries with 11 per cent of the worldwide population.
 Overall, organised crime or gang-related homicide accounts for 30 per cent of homicides in the Americas, stated the report.
 In Mexico, 85 000 people have been murdered in drug-related killings since 2007.
