The hierarchy of the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) is closely guarding statistics that could give a fuller picture of the crime situation this year.
Nearly a month after The Nassau Guardian requested crime statistics for the first six months of this year, police have failed to make them available.Repeated requests have been met with repeated unfulfilled promises to date.
The initial request was made directly to Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade who committed on the spot to making the information public.
Greenslade instructed his staff officer to organize the release of the statistics last month, but after numerous calls, it appears to The Guardian that the staff officer has been facing a roadblock in getting those statistics released.
The Guardian recently contacted Greenslade on the matter.
There was another commitment from the police chief via e-mail on August 16 to release the statistics. "I will get someone to put the figures together for you," the commissioner advised.
It was the same commitment he gave The Nassau Guardian on June 25. The most recent call to the commissioner was made on Friday, but has not yet been returned.
The publishing of these statistics is important to the general public, as they provide an indication of whether people ought to be taking extra precautions due to spikes in certain types of crimes, such as housebreaking.
Successive governments and police administrations have treated the regular release of crime statistics in a highly secretive fashion.
National Security Minister Tommy Turnquest at various speaking engagements during the year at his discretion has released some numbers.  And has in the past even released them directly to the press.
However, this is not an orderly process and there is nowhere on the police force's website to get up to date data on the full crime statistics.
Police have a sophisticated data collection system.  The RBPF is able to compare crime trends to a particular day.
In fact, when the first request was made to him last month, Greenslade had in his possession a computer-generated breakdown of crimes that had been committed.
Apart from the murder count which the media and general public are able to tally throughout the year, it is difficult to keep track of other crimes like armed robberies, rapes and housebreakings as many of these crimes are not reported to the press.
So there now only exists anecdotal evidence to suggest that crime is on the rise across the board.
It of course may not be, but without the timely release of the numbers, it is impossible to tell.
Speaking at a church service marking the 19th anniversary of the Free National Movement's August 19, 1992 victory at the polls, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham yesterday recognized -- as he has in the past -- that crime is at an unacceptably high level in The Bahamas.
"Together we can defeat those who seek to destroy our peace, tranquility and economic well-being," said Ingraham after appealing for the public's help in addressing the crime problem.
"They are a small minority and we must determine, as the majority, not to allow the small number of bad apples among us to poison our environment."

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