Burglaries drive serious crime rise
Bucking a trend of declining crime reports in the Cayman Islands since 2010, serious crime shot way up in 2013, with burglaries leading the way, police crime statistics show.
Overall crime rose 32 percent in 2013 compared to 2012.
The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service reported 731 burglary offenses in 2013, compared to 502 in 2012 – a 45 percent increase.
Robberies saw a similar increase in 2013, with 59 reported last year compared to 43 in 2012.
Murder, attempted murder, defilement and attempted robberies also rose last year, according to the police reports.
“The rise in burglaries is a major concern,” Police Commissioner David Baines said.
“We can definitely see a drop in burglaries when specific suspects are arrested, but then when they are released on bail, the number of reports start to rise again. Only a few weeks ago, two of the suspects who were arrested following a burglary in Red Bay [after a police pursuit] were found to be wearing electronic monitoring tags.”
Serious crimes, including burglary, murder, robbery, rape, assaults and abduction, increased overall by 40.6 percent in 2013 compared to 2012.
Volume crimes such as assaults, threatening violence, damage to property and theft all increased in 2013 compared to 2012, by nearly 25 percent year-to-year.
The year 2012 saw the lowest murder and robbery rates in the Cayman Islands for the past five years. Robberies reported in 2010 and 2011 totaled 64 and 67, respectively, while in 2012 robberies dropped to 43. Comparing 59 robberies in 2013 to last year looks like a major increase, but comparing it to 2010 or 2011 would actually produce a decline.
Overall, both serious and violent crimes declined significantly between 2011 and 2012, which means when crimes increased in 2013, the increase represented a substantial percentage.
Commissioner Baines didn’t dwell on specific figures, other than burglaries, in his statement Tuesday about the crime statistics. Rather, he pointed to certain criminal justice and societal problems the islands must address in the future to stem rising crime rates.
“We…have to accept that there a number of other contributing factors to the issue,” he said. “The economic downturn; people are looking to make a quick buck by stealing portable items like flat screen TVs, tablets, smartphones, cash and jewelry.
“We are working closely with the second-hand retailers and, as a result, have been successful in recovering some stolen property, which suspects have attempted to pass to staff within the stores.
“Finally, we all have to admit that it’s now a reality that people can no longer leave their doors and windows open without fear of opportunists entering their property and stealing their electronics, cash and other valuables.”
The commissioner said he hoped the burglary increase, which had been stemmed following a spike in early 2014, would be reversed during the remainder of the year. He urged the public to report crimes to the police and to consider forming neighborhood watch groups, if they had not done so already.
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