Lowest Carnival crime rate in 3 years: Warner

Jack Warner: "I’m saying that over the last three years, by and large,
based on the serious crimes and minor offences, 2013 was the most successful year."

Jack Warned declared on Thursday that there were only 42 reported serious crimes during the Carnival celebrations, noting that it's the lowest in three years.

The National Security Minister was speaking at the post-Cabinet news conference. He said the figure is for the entire country. By comparison he said the figure for 2011 was 64; it was 74 last year. 

The explained that the classification of "serious" crimes included robbery, larceny, wounding, disorderly behaviour, resisting arrest, fighting, assault occasioning a wound, malicious damage, rape and possession of offensive weapons.

“Therefore I’m saying that over the last three years, by and large, based on the serious crimes and minor offences, 2013 was the most successful year,” the minister said.

Warner explained further that he was speaking about reported crimes as opposed to what's not reported.  

“The fact is, we can only give an account of what (offences) have been reported. That’s the truth of the matter,” Warner said.

Commenting on murders, he said: "There was one Carnival-related murder but all told there were five murders over the period for Carnival, one of which was Carnival-related. In 2011 there were two Carnival-related murders but four murders in all the period. In 2012 there was one Carnival-related murder."