With gangs so heavily armed, the inflated murder rate is not all that surprising:
http://puertorico.countrytoolbox.com/2008/09/11/puerto-ricos-gangs-have-more-firepower-than-john-rambo/

This is an outright lie and you should be ashamed of yourself for posting this. There were 800 murders in Puerto Rico last year (2008). The population is 4,000,000 or so. That makes for a murder rate of some 5 per 100,000 people. Almost half of the states have higher murder rates than we do.

Did you click the link to the 2005 FBI Stats?

Please post your source for 2008 statistics.

BTW - It seems like the only one that should be ashamed is Puerto Rico Law Enforcement agencies, and anyone who would rather ignore the problem or pretend it does not exist.

I meant total violent crime rate, not murder rate. The murder rate math I used was incorrect. The difference is that in PR 90% of the murders are drug dealers knocking themselves off, which we do not count because that's Darwin in action.

At any rate, my conclusion is still correct. The mainland US is much, much worse off than we've ever been.

The violent crime rate in Puerto Rico for 2006 was 8929/40 = 223 per 100,000.
http://www.tendenciaspr.com/Violencia/Tablas/DelitosTipo1/Delitos_de_violencia.htm

Only Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota and South Dakota and Vermont had lower violent crime rates. The other 45 states have higher violent crime rates.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004912.html

And this table doesn't include aggravated assaults, ours does!

So what's the real paradise lost? It appears to be the mainland, certainly not Puerto Rico...

Update: Despite the error in calculation, flydb5 is correct in asserting that Puerto Rico is not the #1. The stats for Washington, DC are 35.4 per 100,000, making Puerto Rico #2 in leading the murder race (as per the 2005 FBI stats).

It is interesting to note the following (from Wikipedia):

"The District has a resident population of 591,833; however, because of commuters from the surrounding suburbs, its population rises to over one million during the workweek"

If we consider the non-residents regularly within DC, it could be argued that DCs stat of 35.4/100,000 is overstated. Even so, they would still only be reduced to at or near the Puerto Rican rate.

Thanks to flybd5 for pointing out this error.

Yikes Admin!

In an ealier post you suggested we take a close look at how the states are handling their crime problems, and why they "seem to be doing better than Puerto Rico" in this respect. It seems like they are not doing so good after all. I think we both should be looking for solutions to our problems elsewhere. How about Singapore? Their crime rate is definetly low.

Very good point Isla. We certainly do not have to look exclusively at the United States to identify strategies for reducing crime. The US does make a convenient choice since there are some shared resources.

One caution is that in choosing another country with a lower rate, would be to figure out how similar they are culturally. I'm not suggesting the US is a close cultural fit with Puerto Rico. I am suggesting that Singapore might not be the best choice. For instance, having the hands or feet amputated for theft or adultery (as in Saudi Arabia) might not be a desirable moral strategy for the people here.

Washington DC has been using gentrification to help combat crime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentrification

This is another supposedly effective long term strategy, that has moral questions as well.

When I joined the army my mother told me i was going to get killed. (And that she was going to kill me after all the money she invested in 17 years worth of ballet academies lol) Well statistics show I'm safer in Iraq. At the time of the conversation (id say a year or two ago) about 86 American females had been casualties of the war in Iraq since 2001. Makes me wonder how many of those were Puertorican that lived here. I'm sorry but compared to the number of women that go missing, are murdered by their lover/spouse or beaten in general here and in the states, I think i have a pretty good chance of deploying and coming back rather than stay here and randomly die at the hands of a jealous boyfriend or what ever. Not to mention with people being out of their jobs as they are being let go by the hundreds due to companies closing and such (economy sucks!) the crime rate may just go up a little more. Just a tad. A liiitle bit

Wikipedia is not a scholarly reviewed source or peer reviewed however you want to call it admin. Start getting your sources from places were rednecks from Tennessee can't upload or even more edit. Wikipedia is a joke for gaining accurate information. Anybody has access to the files.

You are welcome to post some "scholarly review sourced" or "peer reviewed" info if you would like.

Am I to understand that you refute a high murder rate in Puerto Rico?

I neve doubted our superiority in this aspect. Not only
in baseball or basketball, we are better than USA. However
in the lame ridiculous, poorly written newspaper news, the comparisons
are never made. ONE will never see the ranking as I have suggested.
We kill more people pa que tu lo sepah.

Yeah I was in Puerto Rico vacationing in 1999 and nearly got it by a couple of cocolos in a low ridder toyota- close call- Iam not racist Iam from puerto rico and I look it. If are going to live there is better to pack heat or just stay home and just take care of your basics. Puerto Rico is not a place to play out in the streets.

FIrst off Nanagasm... what the eff? You do realize that bullets in war do not know gender ? so your argument is well, just a load of crap. The moment bullets in a war become biased towards a certain gender.. I'll concede to your point... Oh and casualties means KIA plus wounded so in reality its over 500 casualties, and that is in spite of women being barred from front-line fighting roles. I'm just saying its ok if you decided to join the Army for some OTHER reason, but do not cite "being safer" as one, because you most definitely aren't ( EVEN WHEN COMPARED TO PR). Ok now that I got that out of my system.

I've lived in PR for 20 years and I have never seen a murder or a shooting, why? because I do not deal nor use drugs plus every time I've seen something odd going on I move away from that place. I know things are bad here, specially this year with the ineptitude of our new Police Chief (who is probably more dangerous than a drug dealer), but implicating that if you walk around outside at night in PR is a guaranteed way to get shot is not accurate (not that blogs are meant to be anyway). Here if you are part of the drug trade you will get shot, and good riddance as they say, but otherwise you shouldn't be too worried, i mean you wouldn't walk around certain areas of Chicago or NYC at night would you ? same in PR and everywhere else.

My problem with this blog is that you, and our government, are focusing on all the wrong things, instead of attacking the causes you are attacking the result. Why did the world population suddenly explode in the 20th century? Because we started treating THE CAUSES to disease ( by having better hygiene, vaccines, and antibiotics) instead of the SYMPTOMS! and social violence is a social DISEASE, caused by the lack of proper public education, the very high unemployment rate and the corrupt public officials in Puerto Rico, instead of scaring people out of here with sensationalist claims and trying to make people ashamed of being from Puerto Rico, you should be encouraging people to get a better education and be part of the change in their communities, so that we can be proud of our little island. The one thing you should be ashamed of doing is portraying this very negative and depressing image of Puerto Rico instead of ENCOURAGING people to create a more positive image for our island, and providing solutions instead of just complaining.

Guy99 - You're all over the place. Point in fact is that the statistics are accurate.

Congrats to you for not being a part of the drug trade and avoiding areas that might get you killed.

As for the rest of your comments, it seems that you haven't read many of the articles on the blog. Get your blinders off. As long as you hide the issues, no one is going to do anything about it.

If the shoe fits, wear it. You want everything to be positive as though you live in some utopia. Well - then avoid blogs that are willing to take a critical look at what's really going on, and spend more time on tourism websites where the professional marketers make you feel more comfortable - with the carefully selected pictures of the beaches (minus trash) and rain forest canopy.

Trying to quiet any criticism just means you're doing exactly what you just ranted against. Speaking out against the issue IS a *symptom*. And you're trying to medicate it to *hide* it (whether you realize it or not). You want to get to the cause? Then be prepared to do more than just hold hands and sing Kumbaya around the Medalla cooler...

guy99... Idk where u been living, in a cave or sumthin, cuz I lived in PR and got raised there in the projects, nd i gotta tell u ive never seen any other place in the US with so much violence, shootout everyday and cops dnt mess with the criminals, even cops are all scared, if it was as nice as you pretend it is then the cops wouldnt be so scared, and walking at nite isnt safe at all, after 12 midnite youre not even supposed to stop at some red lights or youre on for a bad night, living there is almost suicide, unless u live in campo or a very good city. and murders arent all about drugs, its for any stupid reason, trust me i know