Statistics coming out of the 2021 census have shown that 31.8% of crimes in the 12 months leading up to the population count were not reported to police, according to responses from members of the public interviewed by Economic and Statistics Office enumerators.
The statistic has proven to be a worrying figure for Deputy Premier Chris Saunders.
“This is important for us as a community… we need to report crime,” Saunders said at a Thursday, 28 July media briefing as he discussed the crime statistics coming out of the interviews conducted for the 2021 census.
He said that in the 12 months leading up to the census, there were 1,428 victims of crime according to the survey, but only 974 people, or 68.2%, reported those crimes to the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service.
“The RCIPS plays a very valuable role in our community,” he noted, as he lamented the percent of crime not being reported. Saunders added, “as a community and as a country this is something that we can’t become insensitive to”.
Saunders stressed that working with the police helps keep Cayman safe.
“Too many people and too many other countries have gone on that road where people became insensitive to crime and it’s a monster that once it gets out it cannot be tamed. I want to encourage every single person, every single citizen to do your job and report crime. The police need their information to keep our streets safe,” Saunders said.
The RCIPS, when contacted for comment, echoed the deputy premier’s remarks.
“As a general message we would always encourage the public to report crime to the Police,” the RCIPS said in a brief statement.
Interviewees 15 years and over participating in the population survey were asked if they have been a victim of crime in the 12 months preceding their census interview and if they had reported that crime to the police.
According to the census data derived from those interviews, female victims of crime reported their incidents to the RCIPS 70.1% of the time, while 66.3% of males reported crime to the police.
The age groups ranging from 25 to 59 were the primary victims of crime and accounted for 75.5% of individual and household crimes.
The crime rate in the Cayman Islands, excluding traffic offences, stood at 24.7 crimes per 1,000 persons, 15 years and older.
The crime rate in Bodden Town was highest at 27.1 per 1,000 individuals, followed by George Town with 26.4 per 1,000, with both exceeding the national overall rate.
In North Side and West Bay, the crime rates stood at 23.9 and 22.7, respectively, per 1,000 individuals, with East End much lower at 10.1. The lowest crime rate was in the Sister Islands, at 9.1 per 1,000.
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