Comparing Puerto Rico to the World

Just in case you were wondering how our 26.25/100,000 murder rate compares to the rest of the world, I found this awesome infographic:


via Current Worldwide Homicide/Murder Rate on chartsbin.com

Click on "Key" above, to see the whole map!

The worst number of all for Puerto Rico

Unfortunately, this year Puerto Rico is going to establish a new record for the number of murders. As of the end of this past long-weekend, we have 989, six shy of the record of 995, set back in 1995 (the year I arrived on the island). By the way if you're keeping score at home, this means we currently have a murder rate of 26.44 murders per 100,000 citizens or .0265% (a very low percent, so why is the number of murders so alarming?)

The assistant superintendent of Field Operations for the Puerto Rico Police Department, Leovigildo Vázquez, indicated that 2011 will be the worst year ever. In a radio interview on WKAQ, Vázquez identified that 50% of the murders registered this year are associated to narcotics drug trafficking.

Analysis

I've written at length that this is THE most important problem that we face as a society. For me it is a clear and obvious barometer for some of the root causes of our problems:

• The continuing degradation of the rule of law and broken windows combine to create a lethal combination. Symptoms of these factors include: corruption and potent black market economy,
  
• Overpopulation, a lack of jobs, a negative economy, and mass consumerism combine together to push more and more people to sacrifice their ideals, values, and future.
• A political system that keeps us divided, combative, and weak.
  
• Powering all of these factors is the poor educational system in Puerto Rico.

When you combine all of these factors you have a system that is extremely complex and very difficult to change. In addition, it is a system that took approximately 60 to create, so there are no quick fixes. It will take decades to reverse these trends, and any political candidate that says any different is lying.

The Myth of Gang Genocide

While the new superintendent of the Puerto Rico Police Department assures everyone that crime is on the decline, I believe that it exposes the biggest fallacy of drug, guns, and organized crime syndicates. Law enforcement is only one part of a multi-dimensional solution.

Sure we need to find suspects guilty of crimes and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. However, this is like the problem with drugs, if the social conditions they inspire gang-life or drug addiction are not addressed, then law enforcement will never truly eradicate the problem. As most people in Puerto Rico are sharply aware, something is only illegal if you get caught.

While cliche, if we can not remove the incentive for people to pursue a high or the promise of easy riches, we will never see the end to our Puerto Rico murder problem. The true social challenge for Puerto Rican society is to address the root causes of homicide, drug addiction, greed, and apathy. We must accept that the social solution to our problems requires our unified attention and desire to change.

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: James Jordan

Only Unity Will Heal Our Tribal Genocide

At the same time that our police face open scrutiny by the FBI, they also face a 65% increase in homicides over the last 11 years. According to recent trends we are estimated to reach 1,152 murders in 2011. If you compare that to the number of military fatalities in Afghanistan and Iraq we will have killed roughly 775 more people than those serving in harm's way.

To make this sound even worse, if you add all of the coalition causalities since 9/11 and compare them to our history of homicide, you're not going to like the result. With 8,912 murders, we have killed almost 1,400 more people! Ten years and two wars have caused less death for the United States than what has happened in Puerto Rico!

I'm sure as you're reading this, you're thinking to yourself, that's horrible! It can't be worse. Unfortunately, it is. Our murder rampage has been around since the 1960's. Yesterday El Nuevo Dia posted the last eleven years worth of data.

No society can withstand that kind of bloodshed for too long before it causes massive impact. I urge the United Nations or anyone else to please intervene before we have to implode the whole place and start over. The only guide I can follow in this much darkness are the words of Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King provided a beacon for the youth of the United States to lead them out the dark. Dr. King once said:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

Fortunately we're not dealing with the hatred of prejudice. No, our struggle is with something far more destructive than hate, greed. Greed and apathy are Puerto Rico's sins, and the only way out of this nightmare is through our unity as humans. We can't ignore this problem. Any who professes any pride in Puerto Rico should acknowledge that our murder rate is the biggest risk to Puerto Rican sovereignty.

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: jesuscm