Restoring Paradise in the Caribbean: Combatting Violence with Numbers: Executive Summary

While citizen security has become an ever-increasing concern for many Caribbean countries, the magnitude of the problem has not been matched with an equally robust response in terms of research. This publication fills an important gap by analysing data from victimization surveys of individuals (in 5 Caribbean countries; C5) and businesses (in 13 Caribbean countries; C13) conducted in in 2014/15. Most existing studies on crime and violence in the region have relied upon police data. However, we find that only 53 percent of crimes measured in our Caribbean Crime Victimization Survey (CCVS) were reported to the police. This highlights the fact that police data can show an incomplete view of the problem. As such, this study goes beyond much of the existing literature, which relies primarily on police data. This volume contributes new information to our understanding of crime patterns, victim profiles, drivers of particular types of crime, and directions for crime reduction in the region.