– potential to reverse developmental gains cannot be ignored.
ESCALATING rates of crime in the Caribbean and Latin American and the concomitant citizen insecurity is the focus of a new report launched by the United Nations Development Programme.

The grounding breaking Caribbean Human Development Report (HDR) 2012: Human Development and the Shift to Better Citizen Security, released to the media yesterday, is the result of collaborative work among more than 450 experts, leaders of the Caribbean and practitioners.
The report was presented by UN Assistant Secretary General/UNDP Assistant Administrator and Regional Director for Latin America, Heraldo Munoz.
He said, “Latin America and the Caribbean today are suffering from a grave and common problem; crime, violence and citizen insecurity. The worst homicide rate is 6.9% of 100,000 population; however the average rate of homicide in Latin America and the Caribbean is about 20, and unfortunately, in some countries of the Caribbean, the rate of homicides has gone above 40. And even though the population of Latin America and the Caribbean represent only about 9% of the world’s population, we concentrate about 27% of the world’s homicides.”
He added, “The countries with the lowest (homicide) rates are Peru, Cuba, Suriname and Argentina. Moderate rates are present in Dominica, The Dominican Republic, St Lucia, Bahamas and Brazil. The highest rates (occur) in El Salvador, Jamaica, Venezuela, Belize and Honduras.
According to him, these figures have branded “Latin America and the Caribbean the most violent region in the world.”
Munoz said that the fundamental point of the report is that the “increase in violence and crime affects lives, income, productivity, investment and consumption, social capital has diminished and the trust of citizens in their (protective) institutions have diminished.”
He also said, “Insecurity is a key obstacle to human development,” (and the report) “highlights the need to beef up the public institutions capacity to tackle crime and violence, including the criminal justice system, by using preventive measures.”
According to him, “the UNDP has been working on citizen security before, we produced a report for Central America that has shaped security policy in the region and we continue to cooperate with countries in the region with technical assistance and capacity building on the ground…it is our aspiration, after this report, to continue to provide concrete assistance to countries in the Caribbean region that so request it to improve policies.”
Ambassador Colin Granderson, Assistant Secretary General of CARICOM, in brief remarks, commended the UNDP on “the timely report which adds to the existing information on crime, violence and development in the Region.”
He said, “More importantly, the report presents and addresses the issues from a people-centred approach, (which) is important, given that many of the root causes are those connected with social conditions.
According to him, the report “makes a strong case for re-orienting our perspectives with regard to dealing with crime and violence (and) makes compelling arguments for the coordinated involvement of a range of partners in addressing the solutions.”
Ambassador Granderson said, “High levels of crime and violence pose a serious threat to both social and economic development and have the potential to reverse the development gains which we have made over the past decades. The emerging concept of citizen security, advocated for in the report, is a relatively new one for most of us in the Region, as we have been steeped in models focused primarily on the security of the State and on law enforcement as the major mechanism.”
He expressed pleasure that “this Caribbean Human Development Report has a strong focus on youth, building resilience and protective factors, social inclusion, second chance (restoration and re-integration) and on education and training.”
He said, “Significantly, the report devotes specific attention to domestic violence, which has escalated in terms of the seriousness of injury and the increasing rate of mortality, and to the topical issue of gang violence.”
The CARICOM diplomat added that he “welcomes (the report’s) emphasis on the importance of a paradigm shift to address current realities, such as community policing, social crime prevention, and the importance of creating that groundswell of support to change communities.”
The Caribbean Human Development Report (HDR) 2012: Human Development and the Shift to Better Citizen Security examines the issues of crime trends since independence and the impact on vulnerable groups; youth violence: reducing risk and enhancing resilience; reducing the contribution of street gangs and organized crime to violence; the police: transitioning to citizen security; criminal justice systems; state policies and the policy orientation of populations.