TRINIDAD & TOBAGO | Heightened alert after surge in violence. On 5 January, after 11 murders had taken place in the first four days of the year, the ministry of national security announced an upgrading of the alert for law-enforcement agencies. The ministry said this would entail increased visibility of joint police and army patrols; increased air patrols and surveillance; increased roadblocks and stop-and-search activities as well as increased intelligence and surveillance exercises, in all crime hotspots and among ‘persons of interest’. This came after national security minister, Gary Griffith, had closed 2014 by celebrating the ‘halving’ of the country’s…

Belizeans seem unsure about how to assess the public security situation over the past year. Some celebrate the fact that the country’s homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants was the third-lowest since 2008 while others note that the number of homicide cases was 22% higher than in 2013 — a year when Belize was able to boast, inaccurately, that it was the only country in Central America to record a falling homicide rate. Statistics show steady escalation since 1993. The Belize Police Department (BPD) has reported, on the strength of data up to 19 December, that the number of homicide cases…