“Staff Writer” Killing the Caribbean: The Per Capita Problem with Per Capita Murder

I for one am sick of per capita statistics. It may serve a purpose for things such as food production and wealth distribution. However, when it comes to violent crime, it is criminal to lump together countries with small populations, stand them next to countries with a few million, and then seek to vilify the entire nation based on the number of people murdered per 100,000.
Just to put this into context, if one person in the Pitcairn Islands – population 56 – is murdered, it stands to be the most dangerous country in the world, based on the data of these per-capita-world’s-most-dangerous-places articles.
One recent article was most disturbing to the Caribhype team. Why? Because we’re Caribbean and it’s about our turf.
News Americas Now’s “Staff Writer”, clearly having an empty schedule, dull news day and blowing the dust off an old statistics book, decided to pen an article entitled Ten Caribbean Nations More Dangerous than the U.S.: http://www.newsamericasnow.com/ten-caribbean-nations-more-dangerous-than-the-u-s/
Not upset yet?
We’ll start with this. Belize is mentioned at the top of the list, as the most dangerous country chillin’ in the Caribbean basin. Fair enough when you consider the cunty per-capita statistics. But consider this first. Belize, by and large, is never lumped in with the Grand thought of “Caribbean”, much like Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. We love that they are here in the beautiful Caribbean Sea with us, but they are third cousins to the general idea of “Caribbean” countries.
Secondly, Belize is sandwiched between Mexico, at its north, and Guatemala, to its South. Hey… any red flags raised there? The place is basically in Central America, attached to only some of the killinest, drug runninest countries and areas in the history books. Economically speaking, Belize is a part of Caricom, but geographically it is a conjoined sextuplet of mama Central America.
Now to break down what “Staff Writer” was attempting to prove and where he, she or them went wrong – and where we feel everyone before them goes unfairly wrong with per capita stats on murder.
“Staff Writer” Quote: “You are 11.9 times more likely to be murdered in Belize than in the U.S. Forty-five in every 100,000 people are murdered annually in Belize compared to about 4 in The United States according to the UN data.”
For ease of flecking-up “Staff Writer” for this misleading insanity – bullet points:
Who is “you”? Me? I can almost bet that many of the killings in most of the countries mentioned are not random, but related to drugs or corruption or something untoward. Therefore I can almost guarantee that “you’s” chance or my chance of being murdered in Belize rather than the U.S. is much less than 11.9. “Staff Writer’s” chances might be slightly higher.
As of 2016 Belize is thought to have a population density of about 365,864, meaning around 135 and one tiny person are killed each year. Don’t get me wrong, any killing is horrible. But that’s kinda 88 percent less dead people than in the U.S.- according to my calculations.
From just my crude eying of numbers, I can see that Belize’s birth rate is considerably higher than that of the country’s death rate. Why isn’t that taken into consideration “Staff Writer”?
My assumption about an asinine article such as this, is that this is just a mean attempt at boosting the tourism levels of Key West and Miami (and boosting Miami only helps Cuba, silly).

“Hey what you gatta shit on us for?”

Oh wait. Guess who else is mentioned. The U.S.’s poor little step child, who always gets pigeon-poo head – Puerto Rico. As if it isn’t bad enough that they don’t let those poor people vote for the president of their republic, they got cornholed in this article as well. So let’s see. Puerto Rico – a U.S. Territory – is “more dangers than the U.S.” This confuses me more than “Staff Writer’s” anonymity. For “Staff Writer” so despised the Caribbean that he/she/they gave their only begotten Spanish speaking territory, that this crumby article might have a punchline. And we found it funny. Puerto Rico was sixth on the list, and “Staff Writer” was happy to sock it to this US territory cum Caribbean island. Note to “Staff Writer”: those deaths are already American deaths, as they are citizens of the United States of ‘Murica. (assuming we are talking about Puerto Rican murders). So should you happen to be one of the people “Staff Writer” put mouth on, and you happen to be murdered in Puerto Rico, know that you were kinda misled – immigrationally speaking, you died in the U.S.

Other islands included on the list of places you are sure to meet an untimely death by murder (probably by machete if we follow some stereotypes here), according to “Staff Writer”, are Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, The Bahamas, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, The Dominican Republic, St. Lucia and Guyana.

While we would love to lay a joke or two down about Trinidad and Guyana, alas, this is a serious article about a serious issue.

My immediate thoughts about the comparisons between the U.S. and the Caribbean vis-a-vis murder, are flooded with images of violence against innocent Americans due to discrimination, hate and authority. The Caribbean does not suffer the sort of unprovoked mass murder that is seen perpetrated by very young Americans with guns. The Caribbean does not see the amount of seemingly innocent killings by police officers, or the depth of racial discrimination that continues to haunt a country of millions upon millions of people.

For the most part, we Caribbean people love one another. There are many divides, upon which criminal things happen in many of the countries mentioned by “Staff Writer”, but to put a per capita spin on a country of 300,000 versus a country bordering a quarter billion, is to paint an unfair, unjust picture of a generally peaceful region of people. We are left to wonder why Haiti was left out of the mix. Not that we want you having anything to say about our Haitian Brethren. We are a proud people who protect our own. And, yes, we harbour a few bad seeds, like every country in the world. However, Caribhype will not allow “Staff Writer” to mar the reputations of these small, proud countries. These countries are not wiping their populations from the map due to murder. And many of our problems stem from the drug trade which is largely fueled by demand from America. Miss us with the BS numbers next time “Staff Writer”, or come hang out on the beach and sip something strong – you seem to need something in your hand other that a keyboard and a mouse.