Antigua: The Caribbean Human Development Report released Wednesday, revealed that Antigua and Barbuda’s homicide rate was on the rise, fluctuating between 1990 to 2000, according to a report in the Observer.
Antigua and Barbuda was among a total of seven Caribbean countries surveyed and are referred to as the ‘Caribbean-7’. The islands were selected for their diversity, in order to represent a variety in population size, geography, level of development and “character of the problem of insecurity.”
The survey found that 22.4 percent of Antiguans & Barbudans feared their homes would be broken into at night and 20.9 percent feared being robbed at gunpoint because the country had the most dramatic increase in robberies, peaking in 2007. In order to counteract these fears, 26.8 percent kept a weapon in the home and 12.5 percent travelled with a weapon at night.
The paradox is that Antigua & Barbuda had relatively low incidence of violent crime, however had high rates of property crime; while many of the other countries had high rates of violent crime, but had low rates of property crime.
Researchers cited that property crimes are often associated with “inequalities, especially relative poverty”. However, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) notes that in the case of small countries such as Antigua & Barbuda, minor increases in occurrences of violence can have a dramatic effect on the per capita rates, according to the Observer.
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