Wednesday, December 14, 2011

ARTICLE - STUDY = HOMICIDE DECREASE

STUDY SUGGESTS HOMICIDES DROPPING IN HAITI CAPITAL
(Jamaica Observer) - AP

PORT-AU-PRINCE — Haiti's capital has seen a significant drop in homicide rates in recent years despite a public perception that the poor Caribbean country is rife with crime and violence, two social scientists said yesterday (Nov. 16).

In addition, most Haitians view the national police force favourably and see no need to bring back the disbanded army, according to the preliminary findings of a study shared with The Associated Press.

The findings contradict a widespread view that the Haitian National Police force is unpopular and people have felt under siege from violent crime both before and after the devastating earthquake nearly two years ago.

International development experts Robert Muggah and Athena Kolbe collected their data from four separate household surveys done from 2005 through last month with the help of Haitian researchers. Two of the surveys each included 1,000 people who moved into the settlement camps that sprang up after the January 2010 quake.

The experts say their study, supported Canada's International Development Research Centre, indicates Haiti has seen a sharp drop in homicide rates in recent years, based on trends seen in the interviews. Homicides in three densely populated neighbourhoods in Port-au-Prince dropped from 19 per 100,000 people in 2004, when former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted, to three per 100,000 in 2009, their report says.

"We found that the security situation wasn't as lawless as portrayed in Haiti," said Robert Muggah, a fellow of international relations at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

Kolbe, a doctoral candidate in social work and political science at University of Michigan, said the decline in reported homicides coincided with a trend that Haitian police are being used less as a political tool.

The findings echo global crime trends.

Haiti does not feature among the top 58 most violent countries classified by the recently released Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, which sponsors studies on crime trends worldwide. Haiti is also an outlier in the Western Hemisphere. Jamaica, ranked third the most violent country in the world, had an average annual homicide rate of 60 per 100,000 from 2004 to 2009. Honduras had 50 per 100,000.

No comments: