No Crime Figures for 2023 & 2024 – are the figures being supressed intentionally? Is it coincidental that the island suffered one of its highest number of murders in 2024, the year a BBC program ‘Policing Paradise’ was being filmed?
- 20 statistics were disclosed in July 2022
- 2021 statistics were released on November 5, 2024
- 2022 statistics were provided January 2025.
The delay is apparently due to the “necessity to support core policing services and functions“, which required “reallocating resources from back-end functions to respond to calls for service and enforce Covid-19 measures” – read the full Royal Gazette report here.
Covid issues are still affecting the BPS (Bermuda and World Covid timeline)? ‘Support of core policing’ appears to suggest:
- under-resourcing,
- increased crime (but who would know in the absence of information) or
- a combination of both.
The comments of Robert King, the Shadow Minister of Youth, Social Development and Seniors and MP, which can be read here, suggest ‘3’ above:
- Dangerous driving behaviour, including drinking and driving, has become the norm.
- numerous videos circulating about children at school and in the community committing serious acts of violence
- These youths are at risk of becoming gang-involved, some may be associated with gangs already.
- 35 unsolved murders since 2004
- No sense of urgency to dispense justice
- The sound of ambulance sirens has become all too commonplace