Caribbean people worried about crime -UN survey

PORT-OF-SPAIN (CMC):

A soon-to-be-published United Nations report on citizen security in the region shows large sections of Caribbean people feel unsafe and do not have confidence in what is being done to combat crime.

The Victimisation Survey was undertaken on behalf of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Caribbean Human Development Report and conducted in seven countries, namely, Antigua, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, St Lucia, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago, during the period November 2010 to February 2011.

The Caribbean Human Deve-lopment Report on Citizen Security is the first of its kind for the region and will be launched here later this year.

The report has the objective of better understanding why citizen security is so badly needed in these countries and why violence and insecurity are so prevalent in Caribbean. It intends to be an instrument to deal with such issues from a regional perspective, while taking into account the national level issues and specificities.

"The sample for the survey was designed to reflect the key demographic characteristics of the adult population of the participating countries based on the composition of the most recent Population Census of each country.

"A multi-stage, stratified area probability sample was designed with the objective of accomplishing the highest level of representativeness and dispersion of selected sampling units and, in turn, respondents for the study," the UNDP said in the report, a copy of which has been obtained by CMC.

Communication consultant Kevin Garcia told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that 11,207 people were polled across the seven Caribbean countries with the main question being, "Do you think that crime is a major social problem?"

He said the perception-of-insecurity poll showed St Lucia at the top with 42 per cent, followed by Trinidad and Tobago at 38 per cent, and Jamaica, "surprisingly, at third with 26 per cent".