Reuters - A dramatic increase in heroin use in Bermuda
has led to a surge in crime, including a rash of break-ins and
burglaries on the resort island in the Atlantic, police said this week.
- Thefts are at the highest
levels in six years
break-ins have risen more than 32
percent this year as drug addicts
desperately seek money to buy drugs, police said.
``We have seen an increase in the
availability of heroin at the street level. Heroin is particularly
addictive and also leads to an increase in property crime,'' Police
Commissioner Jonathan Smith
said in a Thursday press conference.
This year 21.1 houses per thousand
have been broken into, compared to 14.3 in 2000 in Bermuda,
home to 62,000 people.
Meanwhile, $12.4
million of drugs have been seized this year
by police, far eclipsing the $7 million
in drugs intercepted in all of 2000,
police narcotics Chief Inspector Larry
Smith told Bermuda's ``Royal Gazette'' newspaper.
Cocaine and marijuana have routinely
been available in Bermuda,
but heroin use has been relatively rare. |
Break-ins, when you consider the statistics, have not increased by 32%;
this is a misleading figure put forward to disguise the extent of the
problem. 32% is applicable if you consider the current break-in
level as a starting point. Only someone seeking to understate and
misrepresent the truth would do so.
The increase is nearer 50%
as any schoolboy will tell you; 14.3 / 1000 house holds broken in to
last year, 21.1 / 1000 this year. The figures are almost perfectly
divisible by 7 (14 & 21). Break-ins
have risen by neigh on 50% - crisis
time!
Ask yourself why someone is trying to
mislead the population and treat them like idiots.
Crime is out of control. The
police service is a shambles; under-staffed by inexperienced,
unenthusiastic and unimaginative officers. The island's
constabulary is a mix of those who are unfamiliar with the country, seek
only to receive a pay-check at the end of the month and the
insufficiently trained. Even the UK officers, generally recruited
from county constabularies, lack knowledge of crime investigation, or
exposure to narcotics.
Moral is low and the newly appointed
Commissioner of Police has been
catapulted to the rank. Below the COP is a very unstable
'leadership'; officers (hardly fit carry the title) discarded as
potential Commissioner in favor of the youngest chief of police the
island has seen.
Things can only get .... worse.
Possibly why the incredible rise in crime is being played down. In
what other civilized country has there been a 50% increase in burglary?
Another record? |
