Guyana is part of an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) financed regional system which compiles crime and violence information from 18 other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region.
A release from the IDB, on the occasion of Brazil joining the joint initiative that generates comparable crime data, revealed that the regional system of crime and violence indicators was a tool that enables governments in LAC to share and analyse standardised statistical data to better design, implement, and evaluate security policies and programmes.
The release said that crime statistics are not always comparable as each country obtains its data from different sources, including the police, ministries of health and other agencies. Each uses different methodologies to compile the data. Homicide rates, robberies and other indicators may vary considerably from one data base to another. Countries even use different terminologies for specific crimes.
To overcome this, the IDB in 2008 had launched the Regional System of Standardised Indicators in Peaceful Coexistence and Citizen Security (SES), with the aim of compiling and harmonising data, and improving reliability. The IDB provided US$3.35 million in grant financing for the initiative, which is designed to assist governments to tackle the region´s high crime rates.
Brazil has been a pioneer in systematising information on security. With the adoption in 2012 of its National System of Public Safety, Incarceration, and Drugs – which is coordinated by the Ministry of Justice – the country has improved its storage, processing, and integration of data and information related to public security, prison systems, law enforcement, and control of trafficking in crack cocaine and other illicit drugs.
The release said that according to IDB citizen security specialist and coordinator of SES, Jorge Srur, Brazil’s membership will be valuable to the group as a whole. “Countries already belonging to SES will greatly benefit from the data and technical standardisation developed by Brazil,” he said. “In addition to sharing data, the countries are eager to adopt efficient methodologies to generate reliable information, and then go on to develop effective security programmes.”
With Brazil’s participation, the system’s statistics will include 90 percent of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean. So far, the SES countries have agreed on 22 crime indicators based on information from more than 180 institutions in countries and cities. These numbers will increase substantially with the participation of Brazil, which will be led by the country’s National Secretariat of Public Security.
Apart from Guyana, the system receives official data from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Honduras, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, and Paraguay. Belize and a number of Caribbean States are considering their participation.
The initiative is being carried out with technical support from the Cisalva Institute of Colombia’s Universidad del Valle. Strategic partners include the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the United Nations Development Pro-gramme (UNDP), the Central American Integration System (SICA), and the Organisation of American States (OAS), which have worked with the IDB in bringing Brazil into the SES system, the release added.
