WE'RE NUMBER ONE! (almost)

[East Coast Hustle]

The homicide rate in the Virgin Islands has gotten bad.  So bad that the government no longer publishes numbers related to it, and the territory's MEs and judges do anything they can to either label a death as something other than a homicide or to bring lesser charges/drop charges altogether. In fact, if you call the VIPD and ask about it, you will be hung up on. I spent half a day digging through the VI Daily News archives and bugging one of my cousins who works in the legislature there, and got something approaching a reasonable figure.

The per-capita homicide rate for the entire USVI is 51 murders per 100,000 people. (The absolute accuracy of these numbers is still highly questionable as many homicides never get reported at all and the actual population of the territory is higher than the official count due to rampant and constant illegal immigration from down-island.) For comparison's sake, the homicide rate for the USA has been between 5 and 6 per 100,000 for several years. If you break it down further, island by island, the rate on St. Thomas is 68.4 murders per 100,000 people.

That's fucking insane.

Let's compare:

Baghdad: 48 murders per 100,000 people

Colombia: Peaked around 66 per 100,000 in the early 2000's and is now around 35 per 100,000

Jamaica: generally considered to have the highest homicide rate of any sovereign nation in the world at 58.8 per 100,000

In the US, the worst spots are New Orleans (52 per 100,000), Detroit, and St. Louis (both at 40 per 100,000).

As near as I can tell (at least among parts of the world where records of things are kept), St. Thomas is the deadliest place on earth not currently undergoing an armed conflict.

Don't worry, though...we NEVER kill tourists. So come on down and spend some money in the territory. Just don't leave the resort/shopping center/waterfront.

[Jasper]

There's no way I'm ever setting foot on that island. 

[Cain]

Damn, when you're beating Colombia and Baghdad, you're doing pretty good.

I need to Google what the homicide rate was for Italy in the 70s and 80s.  If you can beat that, we may be in world record territory here.

[East Coast Hustle]

There's no way I'm ever setting foot on that island. 

I was dead serious about tourists being completely safe. Even the criminals know where their money ultimately comes from and don't want to jeopardize that. A tourist gets killed about once every 3 or 4 years and it's almost always a black statesider who thought their black skin meant they could walk a little further down that street to get a better deal on a bag of weed. If you stick to the touristy areas, you will have a wonderful vacation.

And if you ever actually went to STT, Siggy, I'd make sure you were in good hands. Even the most hardened psychopath on STT knows better than to cross the Northside Frenchies.

[Jasper]

Hmm.  That's pretty comforting, despite everything.

Northside Frenchies?

[East Coast Hustle]

The Frenchies are the descendants of white french settlers that came over from St. Barths in the 18th century. They were, until my generation, almost exclusively fishermen or farmers. They settled mostly on the Northside (not "north side", it's all one word) with a small enclave west of Charlotte Amalie on the water (now known as "Frenchtown"). They are culturally distinct from the black west indians and the white continentals. And you do NOT cross them. Everybody on STT knows that if the frenchies want you dead, you'll end up in a fishpot and there will never be so much as a hint of an investigation. They have historically tended to (up until my generation) only marry other frenchies, but there are always exceptions and my mother is one of those.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

That's insane.  

Higher than Columbia?  

[East Coast Hustle]

Colombia has gotten alot safer in the last 6 or 7 years. Cruise ships stop in Cartagena now. But it's higher than Jamaica, Baghdad, or Johannesburg. Now, none if it comes anywhere close to Juarez (estimated to be around 200 per 100,000), but I would argue that Juarez IS is the middle of an armed conflict and that many of those deaths shouldn't count as civilian homicides.

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

What is the cause of all the violence?

[Requia ☣]

What is the cause of all the violence?

Utter lack of giving a shit on the part of the rest of America I think.

[Lyris_Nymphetamine]

Just like I Still Know What You Did Last Summer - you go to a paradise island thinking its a porn but it turns out to be a horror where everyone dies by the hands of some guy with a massive fishhook

[East Coast Hustle]

What is the cause of all the violence?

Utter lack of giving a shit on the part of the rest of America I think.

There is no amount of giving a shit that America could do that would change anything on STT. Except for deciding to cut the territory loose and grant it independence, which would make everything about 100x worse. Most of the violence is related to the drug trade or gang beefs. There's a whole lot of violence and murder that's related to all of the graft and corruption down there, but those almost never get reported so they don't count in the context of the numbers mentioned earlier.

[Requia ☣]

At this point I'd agree.  Had America actually been paying attention in the past it might have improved with the rest of the country though.

[East Coast Hustle]

America was more concerned with getting the USVI off of the UN's list of non self-governing territories for appearance's sake than it was with what was best for the USVI and the people who live there. The place was just fine for 50+ years with a federally-appointed governor who was accountable to his superiors in DC. Then they introduced the american election system to a place with rampant nepotism and crony-ism and subsidized the new territorial government with BILLIONS of dollars of federal money with virtually no accountability or oversight at the exact same time that the Caribbean was turning into the primary trans-shipment route for Colombian cocaine. It was, predictably, a complete disaster.