Between 2010 and 2022 the population of Belize only grew by about 75,000 - which was an unexpected slow down in the growth rate.
That means that the projected population of 441,000 was off by about 45,000. So, the census approved population of Belize is just 397,000.
With those new figures, the murder rate automatically changed from 19.1 to 21.4 murders per hundred thousand residents.
So, to keep the murder rate low - or to get it below 20 - police would have to record fewer than 85 murders in 2024 - which we are not on-trend to see. We asked the commissioner about it today:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"I'm sure that the numbers brought up by census is not an accurate figure of our true population. I am sure that Belize has far more people than the census declared and you know when we're doing census, some people go and hide, especially those persons who may be here illegally. And if we look at the migrant communities, there are a lot of people who are undocumented, and those people would not normally avail themselves for census, so I am sure we have more people than the census declared. But I do support you that moving forward we have to work hard. You, Jules, and Channel 7 know how much I study the murder rate and it is something, I wish we wouldn't have murders but it occurs now and then and we must do our best that when it do occur we solve it and also do our best to prevent it from occurring and our primary objective is always to prevent, if prevention fail, then we try to work on investigation."
As of mid April, the murder numbers for 2024 are about 30% above where they were at the same time in 2023.
