A United Nations study of crime in Latin America and the Caribbean found that the Bahamas had the highest share of crime victims who were men.

The report, Global Study on Homicide 2023, noted that globally, homicide perpetrators and victims are disproportionately male.

“This is particularly the case in Latin America and the Caribbean, where approximately 91 percent of homicide victims in 2021 were men, while the global average was 81 percent,” the study found.

“The countries with the highest share of male homicide victims in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2021 were the Bahamas (95 percent), Guyana (93 percent), Haiti (93 percent), Colombia (92 percent) and Brazil (92 percent). .

“Men involved in criminal violence in Latin America and the Caribbean are also disproportionately young. This is partly to be expected as the sub-region has a relatively large youth population, although the share of young people has declined over time. In the Americas, including North America, over 45% of homicide victims were between the ages of 15 and 29 in 2021.

“Countries with the highest share of homicide victims in this age group included the Bahamas (52 percent), El Salvador (49 percent), Guatemala (48 percent), and Colombia (46 percent). Most victims in this age group were men.”

The Bahamas had 95 murders in 2019, 73 in 2020, 119 in 2021, 128 in 2022 and 110 in 2023.

In 2022, the Royal Bahamas Police Force stated that 92% of the 128 people killed were men.

In 2023, police said, 95 percent of the 110 people killed were men.

The majority of victims in both 2022 and 2023 were between the ages of 18 and 35, according to police statistics.

The UN study says the high proportion of young people who are victims of crime in the region may also be linked to the demographics of criminal organizations in the sub-region.

“This is because, while the leadership of organized crime organizations may be older, in general, the ranks of drug-trafficking factions, militia groups, street gangs and other criminal entities are usually made up of young people,” it said. say.

“There are multiple motivations for joining criminal organizations, from the desire to belong to the search for economic opportunities, Latin American youth, more than 80 percent of whom live in urban environments, are deeply concerned about their lack of education and opportunities to employment. .

“These motivations have apparently been exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the risk of youth recruitment into criminal organizations has increased.”

The study found that around eight in 10 homicide victims worldwide in 2021 were men or boys and two in 10 were women or girls.

Available data shows that women and girls are “disproportionately affected by criminal domestic violence, perpetrated by intimate partners or other family members”.

“In general, countries that have higher rates of female intimate partner homicide also tend to have higher rates of family-related female homicide,” the study said.

“However, rates of female intimate partner homicide show much greater variability between countries in different regions than rates of female family-related homicide. In Latin America and the Caribbean, in particular, women and girls are more likely to be killed by intimate partners than by other family members, while the share of female partner and family-related homicides tends to be more equal in countries from other regions. .”

trendThe study says homicide rates in Latin America and the Caribbean have been high for decades and, in some areas, have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It said the Americas had the highest regional crime rate in the world and high rates of homicide violence linked to organized crime.

“Latin America and the Caribbean not only consistently has the highest homicide rate of any subregion, but also had the highest proportion of homicides involving organized crime globally in 2021,” it said.

“Furthermore, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean reported the highest proportion of homicides involving both male victims and firearms. In 2021, eight of the 10 countries with the highest homicide rates in the world were located in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

The Caribbean has seen its most dramatic rise in murderous violence in recent years, the report said, “in large part due to intense gang competition in the drug market.”

“In 2022, the number of homicides in the Turks and Caicos Islands, a transit point between the Bahamas, Colombia and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic), rose to 28 in October 2022, up from 13 in all of 2021,” the study. said.

“In Jamaica, the homicide rate reached 53.3 per 100,000 in 2022, with approximately 70% of homicides linked to organized crime groups or gangs in 2021.

“Saint Lucia recorded a homicide rate of 36.7 per 100,000 in 2022, a slight decrease from the previous year, while Saint Vincent and the Grenadines reported a homicide rate of 40.4 per 100,000. Meanwhile, the homicide rate in Trinidad and Tobago has risen to 39.5 per 100,000 in 2022, an increase of more than 30% from the previous year, largely due to the splitting of large gangs into smaller violent factions.

“The homicide rate reached 31.2 per 100,000 in the Bahamas in 2022, and in Haiti, it increased to 18 per 100,000 in 2022, an increase of more than 35% from 2021, due in large part to increased tensions associated with violence in gangs. .”

Meanwhile, the homicide rate in Central America has stabilized or declined, the study found.