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Study: Crime is costing Caribbean nations
BY PABLO BACHELET
Caribbean nations, perceived by most Americans as sun-soaked paradises, are paying a steep price in lives and lost economic opportunities because of soaring crime, according to the World Bank and United Nation's first-ever report on the economic costs of crime.
Reducing the murder rate by one-third would more than double per capita economic growth for the region, according to the report released Thursday.
Caribbean leaders have been battling crime fueled by the drug trade for a long time but now, murders, rapes and kidnappings have overwhelmed police forces and rich, drug-consuming nations and multilateral institutions need to get more involved, the report added.
''The report is a starting point for putting crime on the development agenda,'' said Caroline Anstey, the World Bank director for the Caribbean.
The 231-page study Crime, Violence and Development: Trends, Costs and Policy Options in the Caribbean, was produced jointly by the World Bank and the Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. It will be discussed at a June 19 summit between the Bush administration and Caribbean leaders.
Investigators pulled together all of the previous empirical work on crime in the region and added original research of their own, with input from local consultants. They looked at factors like the cost of more security to businesses to determine the impact of violence on economic growth.
The region has the word's highest murder rate, and the economies of Haiti and Jamaica would grow 5.4 percentage points faster annually if they reduced their crime rates to levels similar to Costa Rica, the report said.
The overall murder rate in the Caribbean is 30 per 100,000 persons, compared with 26 in Latin America and seven in the United States. Those numbers are from 2002, the last year for which regional comparisons are available. Murders have been rising since then in the Caribbean and declining in some parts of South America.
''If anything, we know the homicide situation has gotten worse,'' said Ted Leggett, a researcher with the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.
Studies show that crime diminishes when incomes rise and that is true in the Caribbean also, researchers said. But the region has some oddities: Caribbean homicide rates are a third higher and robbery rates a fourth higher than countries elsewhere with similar economic conditions, according to the study.
As expected, the poor are more likely to be hit by violent crime, while the rich suffer from property crimes. Other factors that play into the crime equation: high urban density and the presence of young men, the researchers said.
The murder rates vary from country to country, with Jamaica registering 49 deaths per 100,000 people in 2006, Trinidad and Tobago registering 30 in 2005 and the Dominican Republic 27 the same year.
Study: Crime is costing Caribbean nations
BY PABLO BACHELET
Caribbean nations, perceived by most Americans as sun-soaked paradises, are paying a steep price in lives and lost economic opportunities because of soaring crime, according to the World Bank and United Nation's first-ever report on the economic costs of crime.
Reducing the murder rate by one-third would more than double per capita economic growth for the region, according to the report released Thursday.
Caribbean leaders have been battling crime fueled by the drug trade for a long time but now, murders, rapes and kidnappings have overwhelmed police forces and rich, drug-consuming nations and multilateral institutions need to get more involved, the report added.
''The report is a starting point for putting crime on the development agenda,'' said Caroline Anstey, the World Bank director for the Caribbean.
The 231-page study Crime, Violence and Development: Trends, Costs and Policy Options in the Caribbean, was produced jointly by the World Bank and the Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. It will be discussed at a June 19 summit between the Bush administration and Caribbean leaders.
Investigators pulled together all of the previous empirical work on crime in the region and added original research of their own, with input from local consultants. They looked at factors like the cost of more security to businesses to determine the impact of violence on economic growth.
The region has the word's highest murder rate, and the economies of Haiti and Jamaica would grow 5.4 percentage points faster annually if they reduced their crime rates to levels similar to Costa Rica, the report said.
The overall murder rate in the Caribbean is 30 per 100,000 persons, compared with 26 in Latin America and seven in the United States. Those numbers are from 2002, the last year for which regional comparisons are available. Murders have been rising since then in the Caribbean and declining in some parts of South America.
''If anything, we know the homicide situation has gotten worse,'' said Ted Leggett, a researcher with the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.
Studies show that crime diminishes when incomes rise and that is true in the Caribbean also, researchers said. But the region has some oddities: Caribbean homicide rates are a third higher and robbery rates a fourth higher than countries elsewhere with similar economic conditions, according to the study.
As expected, the poor are more likely to be hit by violent crime, while the rich suffer from property crimes. Other factors that play into the crime equation: high urban density and the presence of young men, the researchers said.
The murder rates vary from country to country, with Jamaica registering 49 deaths per 100,000 people in 2006, Trinidad and Tobago registering 30 in 2005 and the Dominican Republic 27 the same year.
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