Compared Statistics Show Major Crime Decreased by 16%

For the second year in a row, the Belize Police Department is celebrating a murder rate below one hundred victims. In 2024, eighty-nine murders were recorded, a slight increase from the eighty-seven in the previous year. Today, the Belize Police Department presented the 2024 crime statistics, using data from the CompStat report. According to the report, major crime is down by sixteen percent, despite the slight increase in murders. Minister of Home Affairs Kareem Musa and Commissioner of Police Chester Williams provided more details on the findings.

 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“Overall we had a reduction of sixteen percent in major crime and a slight increase in homicide or murders. In other words, murders went from eighty-seven 2023 to eighty-nine 2024. Overall major crime for 2024 was, currently is one thousand and seventy-five. So Eastern Division accounted for a decrease of twenty-four percent in major grade, when compared last year.  So 2023 also,  Eastern Division represented eighteen  percent reduction in homicide. And I can say to you that 2024 is the only year in history. I could recall where Eastern Division does not account for more than half of the country’s murder count.  In other words, of the eighty-nine murders committed in 2024, Eastern Division had thirty-nine,  which is less than half.”

 

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs

“I am satisfied, specifically with the performance of our police department in the second half of 2024. The first half, as you would recall, we had a sharp increase in the number of domestic murders, I believe for the first time in a long time, domestic-related murders or crimes of jealousy, so to speak actually were more, I think eighteen in 2024 compared to gang related murders, which were seventeen in 2024. And so that is of great concern and. The importance of meeting a session like this with COMPSTAT is not just to review the last quarter of 2024, but all of 2024 to see how much we can better, uh, the strategies, uh, that we formulate moving into 2025.”