Bermuda recorded its first identified gang murder in 2001 (Ministerial Statement — Michael Weeks, Minister of National Security) and to date the number stands at 79 in an island that is 22 square miles. The year 2019 was the first time in 20 years that there were no homicides (The Royal Gazette, January 2020, Wayne Caines, Minister of National Security).

How do Bermuda’s murder/homicide rates compare to the world’s statistics and what do they reveal? The United Nations’ international homicide statistics are included for a comparative analysis. The total number of countries in the statistics was 204; however, given that some countries had not provided statistics for 2020 and more recently, these countries were omitted, the rankings remained consistent, though.

A cursory glance at the table reveals that some of the perceptions we had about dangerous countries do not appear to be true, and also that Bermuda ranks quite high on the chart. Britain, Tanzania, Bolivia, Cameroon, Tunisia and Kenya have lower murder rates than Bermuda. The United States is only marginally higher than Bermuda and Zimbabwe and Chile slightly higher.

When reviewing the Caricom member states and associate members, only the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Grenada have murder rates comparable to the US. More alarming is that the other 12 member and associate member states have the highest murder rates.

However, the real surprise is Rwanda, whose murder rate is almost half that of Bermuda’s. In 1994, Rwanda suffered a genocide that lasted 100 days between two warring tribes — the Hutu majority and the wealthy Tutsi minority. Before the war, they lived in relative peace; however, during the war, neighbours killed neighbours, and some Hutus killed their Tutsi wives for fear of being killed themselves. It is estimated that approximately 800,000 civilians were killed.

More concerning in Bermuda is the trend that has evolved from what was a once-rare and tragic occurrence has now become almost commonplace. Women are also becoming victims and gang/criminally involved people are now becoming more brazen, ie, the 2020 daylight murder by gun of a gang member on Court Street, one block from Hamilton Police Station, while a police officer was in proximity, and most recently, this year when suspects discharged a firearm towards a police car that was pursuing them.

So how is it that Rwanda’s murder rate is lower than ours? How is it that Britain scores 5.4 times lower than us and the US scores essentially the same as us? For Rwanda, the Government, immediately after the genocide had ended, pursued a policy of “Unity and Reconciliation”, created empowerment programmes for women and also increased opportunities for economic growth and stability for the country. For Britain and the US, addressing youth crime, in particular gang/murder and serious harm to persons, was made a priority and a co-ordinated, best-practice approach at the national and state level was adopted, with the effectiveness of programmes and interventions data-driven.

Bermuda can and must learn from other countries what works for similar communities and how best to adapt and improve upon the results. The first step for Bermuda is to designate the youth murder rate as a public health crisis, and make it a priority for action in the same way that we dealt with Covid-19.

During that time everything that was done was with the purpose of safeguarding the community, and all resources and agencies, departments and service providers were co-ordinated, liberties were restricted, consequences for breach were severe and the majority of people having understood the extent of the crisis complied and collectively we weathered the storm. It is understood that Covid-19 also negatively affected mental health and led to an increase in intimate-partner violence — if we are again faced with such a pandemic, we will need to put measures in place to reduce the likelihood of harm.

In Bermuda, we have the Bermuda Police Service whose primary function is suppression, while the Gang Violence Reduction Team’s function is to assist gang-involved persons in developing healthy lifestyles and safeguarding them from harm. The departments of education, family services, child and adolescent services, court services, the Mirrors programme and community therapeutic services are involved in intervention/prevention.

Prevention is achieved by empowering families and children, and providing a safe environment. However, these departments and organisations are not co-ordinated and resources are not used efficiently. Furthermore, there is no one body that is responsible for data collection, oversight and accountability to ensure that objectives are being met. It can also be argued that court sentences for convicted youth and adults are not meeting the goal of deterrence and reduction in violent crime, and therefore must be reviewed and compared with other jurisdictions to determine what is most appropriate.

Bermuda must ensure that a holistic and best-practice approach is used to address the island’s crime as a whole. We must make addressing serious offences against the person and the youth murder rate the No 1priority and make the necessary resources, human and financial capital available.

Best practice demands that “approaches to prevention or treatment are validated by some form of documented scientific evidence”. It does not include those approaches or strategies based solely on tradition, convention, belief or anecdotal evidence. (Kania, J., and Kramer, M. 2011. Stanford Social Innovation Review 9(1). Adapted from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.)

Remember, a child that loses its life in this tiny island affects all of us.

• Robert King is the Opposition MP for Smith’s North (Constituency 10)

UPDATE: this article has been amended to correct the table to show that the number of murders in Bermuda in 2023 was 4, not 48. We apologise for the error