Crime
Further information: Crime in Trinidad and TobagoPort of Spain and its immediate environs have a higher crime rate than any other part of Trinidad. Homicides countrywide rose from fewer than 50 in the 1980s, to 97 in 1998, then to 360 in 2006 (30 murders per 100,000 persons). It rose to approximately 500 in 2008 but decreased significantly in 2010 and 2011.
Many murders are drug and gang related, especially in the depressed communities of East Port of Spain. The police administration has responded by improving the working conditions of officers, increasing the use of forensic evidence and surveillance technology (CCTV cameras) as well as hiring overseas experts.
Reports of kidnappings for ransom which were on the rise a few years ago have declined dramatically since 2006. However, theft and violent crimes remain prevalent to this date, while crime and the perception of crime continues to hamper the economic prospects of the city.
Read more about this topic: Port Of Spain
Famous quotes containing the word crime:
“There is no society known where a more or less developed criminality is not found under different forms. No people exists whose morality is not daily infringed upon. We must therefore call crime necessary and declare that it cannot be non-existent, that the fundamental conditions of social organization, as they are understood, logically imply it.”
—Emile Durkheim (1858–1917)
“The prisoner is not the one who has commited a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“The penalty may be removed, the crime is eternal.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)