Belize Survey 2024 is Formally Discussed  

Two weeks ago, the results of the Belize Survey 2024 were released and shared with the public by the media. This annual survey examines various aspects of Belizean life, such as crime, the economy, corruption, and politics. Earlier today, a press conference was held to discuss the survey’s findings. The principal of Viking Strategies kicked things off by explaining how they gathered the information. This year, the survey includes new data on cartel-related crimes, adding a fresh and important dimension to the analysis.

 

Trygve Olson, Viking Strategies

“They have a pattern where first one, they go the right, then they go to the left and then we collect it via online, via mobile phones and tablets.  So the questions are being asked and they are responding.  We can see the GPS location of where they are, which is one check.  In addition to that, it tells them, say we’re only running into men who are fifty years and older, once the quota gets filled it will be telling them that the next set of interviews they need to be doing younger women or grandmothers or whatever.  So it ends up being that the survey is balanced nationally for gender, age, racial breakdown and demographic breakdown, and then, of course, for regions of Belize. The biggest concerns of Belizeans in the fifteen years that we’ve been doing surveys down here are always one of three things.  They’re always either economic, which could fall under a few different pockets: jobs, prices and just general economic issues, there’s crimes which ebbs and flows.  Sometimes, like in 2014 or now, it’s seen as a huge problem, and the last one is government corruption.  We ask about other issues, but it is always some combination of the three of those for about ninety percent of Belizeans.  Right now, crime is ascending.  I was talking with one of you about a kidnaping that had occurred up in Corozal.  What is new in the survey this time which we had not seen in the past as was mentioned in various ways, is this sort of cartel-related crime.”