There have been 502 murders in The Bahamas since the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) took office nearly four years ago, surpassing the number of murders recorded during the Free National Movement's (FNM) five-year term.
Saturday will mark the Christie administration's fourth year in office.
Ahead of the 2012 election, the PLP, then in opposition, took the FNM to task on its murder record, erecting billboards across New Providence that read: "Under the FNM government 490 plus murders".
At the time, PLP Deputy Leader Philip Brave Davis defended the decision and asked whether officials were about "hiding the truth".
After several of the billboards were torn down, Davis accused the government of using "strong arm tactics" to conceal the facts. He called it a desperate move to hold onto power.
As the PLP's record on murders reached 500 last week, The Nassau Guardian asked Davis to comment, but he claimed he had not seen the numbers.
When pressed on the matter and asked whether the 500 murders were concerning, Davis said, "It's always concerning. Even if our rate was lower [than the FNM] it would still have been concerning to me that we are still having killings, particularly amongst our young black men.
He continued, "Violent crimes and violent killings in our country [have] taken on a life of [their] own and despite the initiatives and the programs -- we continue to attempt to decrease it -- I think the time has come for us to; [it] requires basically a complete recalibration of the mindset of our young people.
"And that is always challenging when you are dealing with not just the hearts and minds of people, rather than dealing with what I call the fundamentals of behavior of people."
Asked whether Urban Renewal has done a good enough job of addressing the social ills, which the government has repeatedly pointed to as the root cause of crime, Davis said, "I think they are doing an effective job, but again, at the end of the day we are talking about the conduct and behavior of people.
"They are reaching as many as they can and I think those that they have reached, we may, I think, have had a higher rate than we have, had it not been for the intervention of the programs that we have employed and the programs by Urban Renewal.
"Recognize that the crime rate is on a downward trend."
When questioned about the reported downward trend, Davis told The Nassau Guardian to "check the numbers".
He said this is an indication that "something is working".
"The crime rate is going down," Davis said.
"The only thing that we have not been able to get our hands wrapped around [are] the violent crimes, which I think is more rooted in the psyche of our people and it needs to recalibrate, which is more difficult."
Between May 7 and December 31, 2012, there were 70 murders.
In 2013, there were 119 murders.
In 2014, there were 123 murders.
In 2015, the year ended with 146 murders, the highest in The Bahamas' recorded history.
The murder count stands at 44 for 2016.
The billboards have continued to plague the PLP amid the high rate of crime over the last few years.
Though Prime Minister Perry Christie said in January 2014 he did not regret his party's decision to erect the murder billboards before the election, four months later he said in hindsight he would not do it again.
As it relates to the government's strategy on crime, the Christie administration was expected to unveil numerous new strategies before the end of 2015, but it was not until February 2016 that Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade presented his policing plan for the year.
While much of that plan encompasses the same initiatives previously outlined, the plan calls for police to acquire the services of a helicopter, the acquisition and lawful deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and the construction of a forensic science facility with emphasis on a state-of-the-art DNA laboratory.
The plan, revealed by Greenslade, did not say when any of these initiatives would come about.
Royston Jones Jr.
Guardian Staff Reporter
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