Police Refute UDP’s Allegations of Manipulating Crime Statistics

The Belize Police Department is strongly rejecting the opposition’s claim that it is misrepresenting the crime situation by manipulating the statistics. Yesterday, the United Democratic Party (UDP) Chairman Michael Peyrefitte accused the department of underreporting major crimes such as murders and robberies. Peyrefitte alleged political influence was exerted on the department to deliberately not classify the deaths of several persons last year as “murders”. He claimed that contrary to the department’s figures, last year’s murder count was 94 and not 89. However, Home Affairs Minister Kareem Musa condemned the allegations today and clarified that the department is not charged with making such determinations. 

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs: “Peyrefitte was lamenting that in fact the numbers should have been 94. Now when I listen to Peyrefitte and Shyne I get the feeling like they’re the grim reapers of governance and politics. I’ve never seen two people, well three, more prey out the lives of Belizean people than these people. They’re preying out the lives of Belizean people. The numbers show that we had 89 homicides but they’re getting up there to complain that it should be 94, we want more people dead in our country like when they were in power, 145. That’s what they should be talking about, same characters lining up who had no plans and I didn’t see Jules air any plans or solutions to crime but these are the same characters who could not provide solutions for crime. Criticizing a difference of five I think numbers it’s 98/89 it’s not 89 or 145. What is cooking ? If the DPP is saying that this is a case of manslaughter you still want to put it as a homicide ? Or if the forensics department has done a post mortem and says it doesn’t seem to be foul play you still want us to put murder ? I mean that’s the level we’re going at now because people just can’t be satisfied that numbers are lower than their time ? Like I said that difference of 89 to a 145 where there are allegations that they’re cooking the books it doesn’t resemble close to what the United Democratic Party had this country in. Not even close. So I don’t know if that’s going to be make you feel better but I’m saying these are the official number. If you want us to cook the numbers up in your favor we can do that if that makes you happy.”

Commissioner of Police Chester Williams also responded to the comments made by Peyrefitte, who once served as Minister of National Security under the UDP. Williams stated that he believes the criticism is more a direct attack on him and Musa rather than a true reflection of the decrease in crime since 2020. 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police: “There is no false information put out by the department. Your figure is 91 and I could understand your 91 because you have two in there that one is still not yet classified , that’s the one in San Pedro and we also have one that is a manslaughter. That’s how you reached to 91. We cannot categorize those as murders because manslaughter is not murder and the one that has not yet been classified we cannot put that as murder so I could understand you. But I cannot understand how Peyrefitte arrived at 94 and then to say to have a country with a murder per capita of 24 is unacceptable. I want to give his his record, the UDP records during their time in office for 12 years. They came into office 2008. 2008 we averaged 31.9 per 100,000. 2009, 30.1 per 100,000. 210, 40 per 100,000. 2011, 37.8 per 100,000. 2012, 43.4 per 100,000. 2013, 29.00 per 100,000. 2014,. 35.2 per 100,000. 2015, 33.4 per 100,000. 2016, 37.9 per 100,000. 2017, 38.2 per 100,000. 2018, 37.8 per 100,000. 2019, 34.7 per 100,000. 2020, 26.0 per 100,000. Now under the current administration 2021, 31.3 per 100,000. 2022, 28.4 per 100,000. 2023, 21.5 per 100,000 and 2024, 21.7 per 100,000. So even if he wants to put it at 24 it is still far better than what existed during the UDP twelve years in office.”

Peyrefitte’s statements were made yesterday at a press conference held by the UDP.