Wednesday, January 1, 2020– Belize and the Caribbean have been plagued with a high murder rate. The problem has never been addressed adequately and current methods are more of the same by trying to cure the high homicide rate with increased policing.

The use of strong policing is an extension of business as usual. The murder rate has escalated and so has the method of policing.

All that will happen is that murderers and other criminals will have to get more crafty and vicious to survive, and I guarantee they will. To them governments offer little benefits to play by the rules. The rules are skewed to benefit the elites, and they are left to grovel. Until the bottom can live with dignity, social conflict in the form of homicides and crime will continue.

The political will to build a better society must materialize or the populace will be treated with mere camouflage action based on force but no real change. 143 persons were murdered last year (35.8 per 100,000), and this year it’s 33.8 per 100, 000). This suggests it has reached a Nash Equilibrium – a stable state of a system involving the interaction of different participants in which no participant can gain by a unilateral change of strategy if the strategies of the others remain unchanged. Policing can only suppress the number of homicides. It is not a solution. Will our leaders implement any solution for the New Year?

Yours truly,
Brian E Plummer