Still no sign of crime statistics for 2023 and 2024
Crime statistics for 2023 are still not available from the Bermuda Police Service, some 15 months after that year ended.
The Royal Gazette asked the BPS in November — a day after the service released their 2021 figures — to disclose the numbers for 2022, 2023 and 2024 under public access to information.
An information officer refused the request because the records did not exist. He wrote that the BPS were “progressing the records”.
“On completion, the records will be published by the BPS for the information of the public.”
Darrin Simons, the Commissioner of Police, upheld the rejection and the newspaper sought a review by the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is under way.
The refusal of the BPS highlights how the public have been kept waiting for crime statistics under the tenure of Mr Simons and his predecessor, Stephen Corbishley.
The time lag between year-end and the release of the statistics was usually several weeks or months under Mr Corbishley’s predecessor, Michael DeSilva.
However, that gap widened considerably after Mr Corbishley arrived on the island in 2018. He did not release any annual crime statistics during his tenure, which ended abruptly when he quit on October 1, 2021.
The 2018 and 2019 crime statistics were released by Mr Simons, as acting commissioner, on October 21, 2021.
The public then had to wait until July 2022 for him to disclose the 2020 statistics.
More recently, the 2021 statistics were released, after almost three years, on November 5, 2024, and the 2022 statistics came out in January this year.
Mr Simons said in November that the 2021 official statistics report was accurate and objective but “regrettably not timely” as it should have been produced in April 2022.
He attributed the delay to the “necessity to support core policing services and functions“, which required “reallocating resources from back-end functions to respond to calls for service and enforce Covid-19 measures”.
Mr Simons added: “Officers routinely access the real-time crime data to make deployment decisions in the moment. This data needs to settle and undergo a rigorous review process before it is released to the public.”
Based on his remarks, the 2023 crime statistics report should have been produced in April last year, while the 2024 report should be produced next month.
Before 2016, the analysis unit of the BPS produced quarterly crime statistics, as well as an annual report.
The Gazette asked in its Pati request for the crime statistics for 2022, 2023 and 2024, including a breakdown for crimes against the person, firearm incidents, crimes against the community, crimes against property, road traffic collisions, traffic enforcement activity, events, arrests, stop-and-search, and Proceeds of Crime Act seizures.
The newspaper has asked the BPS for comment.
• To read the Bermuda Police Service’s Pati responses, see Related Media
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