BELIZE CITY, Mon. July 10, 2017–Based on data accessed from the Belize Crime Observatory (BCO), an official source of information, major crimes are down for the first half of 2017, with murders down by an approximate 4% and property crimes—robberies, burglaries and thefts—down by almost 18%.

At the time of this report, the Police Department had not yet issued the mid-year crime statistics, but we have been told that our request made last week is being addressed.

A quick summary published by the BCO indicates that as of July 5, 2017, there were 43 reports of sexual violence, 71 murders, 93 robberies, 335 burglaries, and 343 incidences of theft. The total is 885 incidences of major crimes for the period January 1, 2017 to July 5, 2017.

By contrast, for January to June 2016, there were 1,073 incidences of major crimes reported by the BCO. At the time, this represented an increase of almost 5% over 2015, or an estimated 50 incidences more, due to increases in cases of sexual violence and certain property crimes.

By contrast, the incidences of murder showed virtually no change when the mid-year 2015 stats were compared to the mid-year 2016 stats.

We are advised that the BCO’s crime in-depth analysis for June 2017 should be available sometime next week.