Puerto Rico Crime Stats (condo, crime rate, houses)

[lentzr]

I recently went to the Puerto Rico Police Website to get the official homicide statistics for the island. Yes, I know, PR official crime statistics are high. In 2009, there were 894 murders at 22.6 per 100,000 in habitants. The US mainland is 5.5 according to the FBI. However, what was most intriguing was the data for municipalities. Based on Census estimates for 2008, I calculated the per capita homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants for many of the major towns. The results were interesting...

San Juan. 44.2. One of the highest.
Ponce. 48.5. Slightly higher than San JUan
Loiza. 88.8 Easily the worst.
Fajardo 26. Average for PR
Luquillo 29.2 A little above average for PR.

The other cities in the San Juan Metro Areas usually were in the 20-30 range.

Arreciba 11.7. better than PR average.
Mayaguez 18.3 better than PR average.

Some small communities were relatively violence-free...
Rincon, Lajas and Culebra lacked any homicide that year

Others, like Vieques only had one.

Now, the question for anyone more familiar with Puerto Rico than me. Why is this the case? Obviously the smaller towns are going to have much less violence than the big cities. However, why is Loiza the worst? Also, why is Ponce slightly worse than San Juan? Why are the large towns of Arreciba and Mayaguez better than municipalities with similar populations in the San Juan metro area? Why are Fajardo and Luquillo slightly above PR average? Is it just population density or do different municipalities have different income levels?...(I will search the web for the income levels and then post the data latter, but the data will only be a very general picture). Do drugs and gangs operate in different areas?

I do not know. I am simply interested in Puerto Rico since visiting during the summer and would like to hear from people who know the island better than I do. (I have a special interest in criminology so that is why I am curious above the crime rate by municipality). I am not trying to make any points, just trying to understand the regional discrepancies for violent crime in Puerto Rico. That's all.

[lentzr]

OK. Here are the income levels based on the 06/08 Census Bureau Surveys.

(((On a per capita income basis (adjusted for inflation) during those years)))

USA 27,466
Puerto Rico 10,064
Fajardo 9,220
Arecibo 8,513
San juan 15,659
Ponce 9,448
Luquillo 10,432
Guaynabo 20,090
Carolina 13,331
Rincon 13,331
Culebra 8,901

Mayaguez, Bayamon and Loiza were not surveyed or the website did not recogize the name without accents.

Anyway, obviously San Juan is the wealthiest. Ditto parts of the metro area. Ponce is poorer. But why? Is that the cause of a higher violent crime rate in Ponce? Fajardo and Luquillo are average income. Rincon is slightly wealthier but is a small town. Arecibo is slightly poorer based on this data but does have a lower violent crime rate than other parts of the island. That is all I was able to find out. Does anyone else know the reasons for regional differences in the violent crime rate in Puerto Rico?

[efrenb5]

Many PRs depend on welfare and tend to have 2-3 kids without really having the resources to keep them. For some reason they forget there are pills and condoms to prevent pregnancy. This is usually true with teenage sex, who tend to have unprotected sex. Because of this, these new parents tend to depend on welfare, just like their parents, creating a vicious circle.

Public education is not that good to make matter worst and family values are declining since forever. Since students that graduate high school end up with low grades or very poor knowledge, they tend not to follow through with a degree. Private education is usually better, but it all actually fall in the parents' hands to keep their children on the right path.

This yields a good amount of people not prepared for any professional career once they reach their 20's. Because they want to win more money, many people tend to fall into the drug world trap. Thus, we have had a big drug problem since many years ago. Most of the homicides are drug related or bystanders.

It is actually interesting that Loiza and Ponce had such a high index of homicides. This might be in part that in those municipalities it's easier to keep a drug operation running than in San Juan. San Juan police has been making raids on projects these past few years, thus I guess drug operations would start to leave San Juan as headquarters and finding a niche on closer municipalities, like Loiza.

Ponce was actually a surprise for me. Maybe some of the drug operations moved to Ponce, having a good density of people to find and deal drugs with.

Most of the violent crimes I would say are drug related. The second reason for violent crimes would be domestic violence. There was a time when there were many homicide-suicides. It has stabilized lately though.

[benice66]

Originally Posted by efrenb5

Many PRs depend on welfare and tend to have 2-3 kids without really having the resources to keep them. For some reason they forget there are pills and condoms to prevent pregnancy. This is usually true with teenage sex, who tend to have unprotected sex. Because of this, these new parents tend to depend on welfare, just like their parents, creating a vicious circle.

Public education is not that good to make matter worst and family values are declining since forever. Since students that graduate high school end up with low grades or very poor knowledge, they tend not to follow through with a degree. Private education is usually better, but it all actually fall in the parents' hands to keep their children on the right path.

This yields a good amount of people not prepared for any professional career once they reach their 20's. Because they want to win more money, many people tend to fall into the drug world trap. Thus, we have had a big drug problem since many years ago. Most of the homicides are drug related or bystanders.

It is actually interesting that Loiza and Ponce had such a high index of homicides. This might be in part that in those municipalities it's easier to keep a drug operation running than in San Juan. San Juan police has been making raids on projects these past few years, thus I guess drug operations would start to leave San Juan as headquarters and finding a niche on closer municipalities, like Loiza.

Ponce was actually a surprise for me. Maybe some of the drug operations moved to Ponce, having a good density of people to find and deal drugs with.

Most of the violent crimes I would say are drug related. The second reason for violent crimes would be domestic violence. There was a time when there were many homicide-suicides. It has stabilized lately though.

Pills, condoms? How about practicing MORALS?

[efrenb5]

Originally Posted by benice66

Pills, condoms? How about practicing MORALS?

You are quite right benice. Sadly, it is not the truth here. I am not saying that PRs are immorals or perverts or anything to that effect. Nor am I saying that only projects teenagers are having unprotected sex. Also, I am not saying that most PRs only exist to hump like rabbits. This would not be true.

Values have been on decline for some time now at all levels and instead of abstaining teenagers are having mostly unprotected sex.

[benice66]

Originally Posted by efrenb5

You are quite right benice. Sadly, it is not the truth here. I am not saying that PRs are immorals or perverts or anything to that effect. Nor am I saying that only projects teenagers are having unprotected sex. Also, I am not saying that most PRs only exist to hump like rabbits. This would not be true.

Values have been on decline for some time now at all levels and instead of abstaining teenagers are having mostly unprotected sex.

I don't know what to say. It shouldn't be that way. It all starts with the family and a maintaining a good marriage for your sake and your children and givng them values. This provides a happy good life.

[efrenb5]

Originally Posted by benice66

I don't know what to say. It shouldn't be that way. It all starts with the family and a maintaining a good marriage for your sake and your children and givng them values. This provides a happy good life.

You couldn't be more right in my opinion.

[hindsight2020]

Well, this is going to go like a fart in church but here it goes. Loiza has the highest percentage of blacks in the island as a municipality. I know, don't shoot the messenger. Carolina is in the same boat due to its adjacent nature to Loiza.

Ponce per capita income is lower than San Juan, but is the second largest MSA. There is an inadequate state police presence in Ponce for the size of the city, leading to a higher per capita crime rate. Also, the southern coastal plains of the island are much drier than the north, which leads to a diminished presence of tourist destinations when compared to the north, not to mention the lack of proximity to the SJU airport. The southern coast of PR is fine, don't get me wrong, but it's generally much drier and never really picked up as a tourist destination the way the north did. There is a reason the Spanish settled around the San Juan bay throughout the centuries. That's why ponce is poorer than San Juan in a nutshell. As such, there is also a higher percentage of blacks in Ponce than San Juan. Just like in America, skin color is a parallel to income strata as a collective. Don't shoot the messenger (again).

As to the metro versus rural disparity, it's again a simple correlation to density. Most projects are found in MSAs such as Mayagüez, San Juan MSA, and Ponce. Most of the drug middle management and distribution centers (warehouses) is found in the projects. So it stands to reason most of the violence would be found near these hot points. Conversely, rural municipalities (85% of them are for Christ sake) simply do not have the population density to concentrate drug crime in that fashion. This is not to say it is not spilling over. Places like Vega Baja/Alta (San Juan MSA), Manati (arecibo MSA), Morovis/Orocovis (central PR,), are becoming spillover victims of the "exurbanization" of drug crime so to speak. But in general the bulk of your violent crime is concentrated in and around drug turf defined by the projects' location.

There's your answer in a nutshell.

[lentzr]

Hindsight - Thank you for your opinion. Now I will not judge you on your PI opinion, I would like like to know where I could get more information on race and demogarphic distribution in PR. The reason why I do not think that the Census is good is because 2000 is a bit dated, but also because I do not know what determines what color one belongs to. From what I have heard the racial boundaries in Puerto Rico are not as clear-cut as in the mainland. For example, like in Brazil I believe that many people will label themselves as "white" when the word "Mestizo" or "two races" would be more appropiate. This would especially be the case since lighter skin tones are associated with higher socio-economic status. Hence, such census data may not be that accurate because of the lack of clearly defined racial categories. Anyway with additional insights on how the fluid demographic group change from one region of PR to the other is welcome to raise the issue with me.

Secondly, Hindsight mentioned that most of the drug crime operates out of the projects...like US cities, those projects sound like bad places. However, many US cities are tearing them down at a rapid rate. Is Puerto Rico going to do the same?

Third, does everyone else in here have an opinion on the correlation between socio-economic status, race and crime? Is it that simple as Hindsight suggests or does anyone else differ?

Fourth, Hindsight suggests that the lack of tourism in southern PR has led to increased crime due to the drier climate...If that is so then why does Fajarado and Luquillo have higher crime rates than other municipalities on the southern coast? Is it the short distance from Loiza?

Finally, are there any densly populated areas in PR that have much lower crime rates than the average? Like a city or municipality that contains a disproportionate high number of high income individuals?

Discuss Further.

[Notepad]

Please do not pay any attention to the poster above you, almost everything he said there was made up by him. He has an imaginary view of PR that does not resemble reality at all.
PR is like any other american city, theres good areas that havent had a single murder in decades, and theres bad areas that do have murders. The difference is that PR is one of the most densely populated places on earth, so there is no such thing really as being real far away from the bad areas, not in the american suburb/inner city sense.
Also, there is no such thing as race in PR. PR is as colorblind as a place can be, any argument to the contrary is just lies, made up out of thin air. And I do know it is hard for Americans to believe such a thing as colorblindness really exists somewhere, but yeah, it does, which is another thing that makes PR a nice place.
And yeah, they do and are tearing down public housing here like they are in America, it was actually a littl ebit on the cover page of todays paper.
Murders ONLY happen to those involved in drug trafficking, a good 98% of the time, and no one can deny this, everyone knows this. So unless your planning on being the next Tony Montana Scarface wannabe, NO ONE worries about getting killed, its ridiculous to even think that Im in some kind of danger. Yawn. This topic is so old, bored, and tiring. Damn rap music, I swear no one cares about this garbage but law enforcement/or wannabes and thugs/or wannabes. Because it does not really pose any problems to normal people, just like in the states. So overated.