BVI’s worsening crime stats speak for themselves
Governor Daniel Pruce said rising crime in the Virgin Islands remained a serious concern as he presented new statistics showing steep increases in robberies, assaults and vehicle thefts, and confirmed that firearms continued to play a major role in violent incidents.
Pruce was questioned at a recent press conference where he delivered an update on crime in the territory, outlining trends first presented at the National Security Council’s Anti-Crime Summit and noted that the data reflected a challenging period for public safety.
Pressed on whether the worsening crime rates reflected poorly on his leadership, the Governor said: “The statistics I shared with you earlier speak for themselves… we can’t wish them away. We can’t pretend that they are not there. We have to expose ourselves to the data, recognise the challenges that we’re facing, and then work to address them,” he stated.
Asked whether the situation indicated a loss of control, he responded that “the reality is that, across the board, all agencies that can contribute to the security and the safety of the islands are working hard to achieve that.” He added that “the trends in recent months have not been in a positive direction, which is why we’re redoubling our efforts to address those.”
He told reporters earlier that robbery in the territory from January to September had “increased by 58% compared to the same period last year” and that, against the five-year average, “the increase is 131%,” he stated.
He added that “minor assaults compared to last year had increased by 8%. Serious assaults up by 9%. And motor vehicle theft has increased by 15% as well.” Police had also recovered “18 firearms and 1,146 rounds of ammunition” up to September, he said. Of the 30 robberies recorded in the first eight months of the year, “25 of those robberies involved the use of a firearm,” he noted.
The Royal Virgin Islands Police Force (RVIPF) warned residents of a rise in armed incidents, vehicle thefts and robberies across Tortola during the year.
Pruce said the shift in gun-related activity suggested “a change in the pattern and apparently an increase in the individual illegal possession of firearms.”
The governor said the National Security Council and local law enforcement bodies were coordinating closely. He also repeated his call for residents to remain calm and follow police guidance.
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Their responsible for saftey but they wont allow us to protect ourselves they still have not caught those robbers and would be broad daylight assassins.
This passage by Erich Fromm from his book “Escape from Freedom” is relevant to one aspect of the problem.
It would seem that the amount of destructiveness to be found in individuals is proportional to the amount to which the expansiveness of life is curtailed. By this I do not refer to individual frustrations of this or that instinctive desire but to the thwarting of the whole of life, the blockage of spontaneity of the growth and expression of man’s sensuous, emotional and intellectual capacities. Life has an inner dynamism of its own; it tends to grow, to be expressed, to be lived. It seems that if this tendency is thwarted, the energy directed towards life undergoes a process of decomposition and changes into energies directed towards destruction. In other words: the drive for life and the drive for destruction are not mutually independent factors but are in a reverse interdependency. The more the drive for life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive towards destruction; the more life is realized, the less is the strength of destructiveness. Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life.
Most of which happened under his watch
Yeah rite , blame the governor for what we are doing to ourselves ,some idiot like yours will be stupid enough to believe that , wiggie Boi , ho and play with your WIG, and stay on your yello site ,please
The reality is that the recently relieved COP wasn’t forcing the officers to enforce the laws, all of the laws. I haven’t seen ticketing officers walking around enforcing parking laws, no scooters being seized, lots of officers driving around but not stopping to issue violations. I even watched an officer directing one way traffic around a food stand at lunch time instead of making the illegally parked vehicles clear the roadway.
We need a hard-ass COP to clear the force of any officer who isn’t willing to enforce the laws, impartially, including to relatives.
Generational lawlessness has resulted in the rise in crime, children watching their older relatives breaking the laws everyday with impunity!
Crack down, or give the lawless the land!
The Governor can only work with his support team. If the team is weak, the system will be weak.
Why is the governor getting blame for your badass children? Under his watch? He’s not giving these 14-21 year olds any guns. The BVI is a cancer to itself when the vision-less started being heard. Yall need to pipe down and suffer tye consequences of your choices
But wait. Wasn’t a local COP going to sort it all out!! No crime increased by 58% under her watch.
Unlivalable hard to get ends meet, devastating gouging greedy prices for all things food and no real jobs with real wages are the core reasons of the continued rise in crime statastics, as there is a direct correlation between earning real money and low crime, and those office warmers high salaried make believers know that..
Where are the people who just raised their salery by 120+%? Where are their jobs proposals?
Well keep waiting yall. Thie territory is fu + k_d and gone to the dogs of poor leadership, poor political acumen and poor desire to move the country forward.
The changing political tides have hit St. Vincent. They shall roll up this way soon.
Yet, no one is asking the government department responsible for crime for answers. Instead, all they give news sites are projections and blame. Blaming thee poor for being poor.
Meanwhile, all the country gets are sound bites and no responsibility taken by the owners of the job titles that are responsible for law, order and policing.
The community awaits to see a tangible reduction in the numbers with the other chosen UK hope.
Jackie aint ready.
In 1968; 57-60 years ago these issues never affected the British Virgin Islands which was just a tiny quiet fishing village. What in the world is going on in the British Virgin Islands?